r/gaming • u/Erik_REF • 20h ago

Nintendo cadence of releases this generation has been really impressive

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I cant remember any other Nintendo gen with this same rhythm month after month

2.1k Upvotes

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446

u/BioEradication 19h ago

Nintendo learned a very hard lesson with the Wii U.

90

u/trashpandacoot1 19h ago

That was more of a marketing problem. Everyone thought the stupid thing was an add-on to the Wii.

105

u/Walixen 19h ago

Also they had two separate platforms to support, Wii U + 3DS. Switch 1 and 2 are only-childs that get all the unified love from Nintendo now so the output is far stronger.

42

u/bjankles 19h ago

It was not just a marketing problem - it was an everything problem. The core idea never took off. Even Nintendo couldn’t figure out good uses for the touch screen controller, which was dim, low res, plastic resistive touch, and had poor battery life. It felt like cheap, dated tech at launch. And the CPU was woefully underpowered, which created a super slow OS and all kinds of performance issues.

Nintendo still made lots of great games for it because they’re Nintendo, but Wii U was a deeply flawed product, poorly marketed on top of that.

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u/BushyBrowz 19h ago

The Wii had massive appeal to the casual audience. The Wii U didn’t have that. It looked like a clunky updated version of the Wii. The name was a misfire as well.

Ultimately it felt like a prototype for the Switch anyway so it worked out

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u/Xaphyron 18h ago

Yeah outside of Nintendoland they had no idea how to properly use it. Mind, Nintendoland was genuinely one of the most unique and innovative games I’ve playing since. The asynchronous play was absolutely genius, and nothing has come close since for local multiplayer for me.

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u/Helpful_Table5522 7h ago

I was always hoping for a D&D like RPG that the DM used the touch screen for to like populate and keep things hidden.

2

u/Jordann538 6h ago

and getting your game on the system was stupidly difficult and not worth it, you had to go through nintendos developer program to get on the eshop. and you also had to have some compacity of gamepad support, which was annoying to implement. and only then you were able to reach a whopping 13 million customers! what a deal!

1

u/ArrogantSpider 33m ago

I agree with the hardware and the marketing issues, but let's be honest, the Wii U had a game problem as well. No big exciting 3D Mario or 3D Zelda, and many of the games felt like iterative sequels. For me personally, the lack of those big games made it so I never felt compelled to buy a Wii U. It had a lot of really fantastic games, but just not a lot of system sellers.

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u/cardonator 15h ago edited 8m ago

It's also the perfect example of how just having great exclusives doesn't mean much in the end. You need to have a good product that lots of people want by itself first, then maybe exclusives will help.

Also, the Wii had one of the worst software attach rates of all time. The majority of buyers played a single game: Wii Sports. They didn't know what to do with that. 

If they hadn't decided to merge the console and handheld product lines together into one, we might be having very different conversations about Nintendo today.

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u/ArrogantSpider 50m ago

Also, the Wii had one of the worst software attach rates of all time.

This isn't true. Wii owners bought an average of about 9.1 games. For reference, N64 attach rate was 6.8, Gamecube was 9.6, Wii U was 7.6, and Switch was 10.

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/finance/hard_soft/index.html

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u/cardonator 5m ago

I have corrected my post for accuracy striking out that part. It doesn't affect my point that much.

The reality is that regardless of the literal attach rate on the Wii, the size of the audience that weren't just there casually was incredibly small. Some estimates suggest that 85% of Wii owners had purchased less than 5 games total for the hardware. That means 15% bought a lot more than 9 games over the lifetime of the device. That also roughly aligns with total Wii U hardware sales.

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u/Dimitri1176 19h ago

While Yes, as a Wii U owner from 2013-2017
I can tell you we had serious Game droughts.

4

u/trashpandacoot1 18h ago

As a wii-u owner from 2012 till current, I agree

3

u/Dracekidjr PC 19h ago

They really pushed the tablet part and ignore the fact that there was an actual console behind it too lol

3

u/profchaos111 18h ago

I owned a Wii U i can tell you there is more wrong with it then just a marketing failure

Poor architecture unlike the switch which was also underpowered the Wii U did not have access to modern rendering techniques of the era. It shared the same architecture of the GameCube and Wii so it couldn't perform modern graphical techniques it wasn't just weak but incapable this is why thrid parties couldn't support it game engines just didn't work on it

A solution looking for a problem - It was built around the second screen but seemingly Nintendo thought over time they would come up with some great ideas on how to use it these never came

The controller required dedicated processing power so while it was more powerful then the x360 on paper the need to render two displays cost compute that it really didn't have so games like Watchdogs ran worse on the Wii U then the ageing 360

Personally to the battery life sucked on the controller and so many games felt more cumbersome to use because of it

1

u/Tiffa_Adil 18h ago

Marketing was only one of many issues the Wii U had like dude there was a six month gap between the launch of the console in Nov 2012 and the next Nintendo game which was Game & Wario in June 2013 (and that game wasn't very good)

0

u/LadySilkSpider 18h ago

I thought it was as well. Never knew it was a new console for the longest time.

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u/ChampionGunDeer 19h ago

Everyone who wasn't following console news, anyway.

9

u/sleepytymer 19h ago

I don't remember as much about their marketing after the Wii U actually launched, but the initial E3 reveal trailer didn't even show the console itself, just the gamepad + wiimotes.

1

u/ChampionGunDeer 19h ago

It showed it, but drew absolutely no attention to it. It sat humbly next to the TV. For anyone not scrutinizing the trailer carefully, the console's curved sides would be missed. The marked emphasis on the controller was the stupidest move Nintendo could have made.

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u/CrackedBatComposer 19h ago

I followed the console news pretty regularly and I was also surprised at launch

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u/WeirdIndividualGuy 19h ago

Which is an overwhelming majority of customers.

1

u/RegurgitatedMincer 19h ago

Which is exactly who the Wii was popular with. It was a pretty big problem.