Since when do gamers hate Nintendo?

[Slothy]

Nintendo fundamentally failed to grasp why the Wii was a success and what implications that had for them. It was an absolutely brilliantly marketed console that brought in unbelievable numbers of people who previously would never have been considered major video game demographics. The flip side of that is - and I'll toot my own horn and point out that I was saying this years and years ago - that these people are not serious or hardcore gamers. I don't mean that as an insult or anything, it's just a facet of their behavior as consumers. A Wii is a thing they bought because they liked that particular product, because the Wii specifically had stuff they wanted. We're used to the console cycle where we get new systems every few years, but to Soccer Mom and Random Grandma they've got a Wii, why would they want or need anything else? And they have no more loyalty to Nintendo than they do to whoever made their TV anyway, these are not people who will go out and buy a Nintendo product because of the name. Or for that matter people who will buy a console of any kind because in the future it will have a worthwhile library.

I honestly think the problem the Wii U has been running into runs a bit deeper than the fact that soccer moms and grandparents don't care about getting caught up in the console release cycle.

The Wii was a casual system released at a time where motion controls seemed novel to the casual gamer, and tablets weren't even a thing and smartphones that didn't suck were only just on the horizon (the iPhone wouldn't land until more than six months after the Wii came out, and let's face it, no one gave a trout about smartphones before that). So basically, it was a casual console with a gimmick that drew in people who weren't traditionally gamers, and the most competition it had was from things like browser based games for the most part.

Being unique in a market with almost no competition is a pretty good thing to be. Too bad the casual gamers who bought the Wii (such as my parents for one) have smartphones and tablets and haven't powered up their Wii's in months, if not years. And the Wii U is stuck in the awkward position of the new gimmick being a tablet in the controller, having power the Wii's audience didn't care about, not enough power for the people interested in next-gen consoles and PC games (or third party's for that matter, which is the traditional Nintendo problem), and it's also burdened with a name that is just stupidly confusing to any non-gamers who might care.

Honestly, when I look at the Wii U, I can't help but see a Nintendo as a company who didn't seem to understand why the Wii was such a success, and had no idea how to build a follow up console. But the DS and tablets are popular. Might as well stick a touchscreen on the controller.

It's a shame really. I've been extremely critical of Nintendo for years now for a variety of reasons. Chief among them being that they spent too much time rehashing their N64 greatest hits, and they made a console I had no interest in with the Wii. But I'd really like to see them get their trout together and turn this stuff around. I just worry they may be a bit too set in their ways for any sort of shakeup that they could really use to be a realistic possibility.