It’s no secret that the Wii U launch could have gone better. Investors are confused, analysts are confused, gamers are confused, and even Nintendo itself has admitted that the launch was confusing.
After having some time to digest the Wii U launch, I still find myself with a huge list of things I wish Nintendo had done better at E3.
10. Called the system something other than “Wii U”
In the week leading up to E3, the name of the PS Vita leaked. [See kotaku's story, for example] Everyone made fun of the name. Obviously Nintendo had already solidified the name of Wii U by this point – but if they hadn’t, coming out with a new console with a cool name would have been a great way to upstage the competition.
Instead, they launched with the Wii U name… possibly the only name on earth that makes “Vita” look brilliant. Even a code name would have been preferable to using the actual name.
9. Explained the concept of a “base station” and a “controller”
It’s true that anyone watching E3 should have realized that the Wii U controller wasn’t actually the console. Even so, it’s a bad sign when long-time gamers have to ask themselves “so wait… does that thing run off the Wii? Or does it run on its own?” In the Nintendo link at the top of the story, Satoru Iwata himself says:
“We haven’t made any kind of blunder, but I should have shown a single picture of the new console, then started talking about the controller. The console is not drastically different, and Wii U is about the controller. The console itself will be almost invisible.”
If you’ve seen pictures of the console itself, you’ll realize it’s not exactly “invisible.” Still, since the hardware at the base station is a lot more important than the controller (since the controller is really just a screen with buttons and sensors), Nintendo was crazy to not talk about the base at all during their E3 presentation.
8. Show us something only the Wii U can do (besides play Nintendo franchise games, of course)
The vast majority of the Wii U presentation was spent showing us ways to play games that already exist, and support for games we can already play on other devices.
- “It has a giant touchscreen!” So does an iPad. So does my phone. So does the PS Vita.
- “It has dual analog sticks!” So does every other console controller… besides the Wii, anyway.
- “It has cameras!” See above.
- “It has gyroscopes!” (yawn)
Then there are the games. Many of the big launch titles – Arkham City, Darksiders II, Metro: Last Light – are already available on all other consoles and PC. Super Smash Bros. 4 was a good announcement, but we didn’t see any gameplay footage. Lego City Stories looks cute, but Lego-branded games are already everywhere.
A compelling console launch needs to explain why you, the consumer, need this console. Whether it’s because of a truly unique control mechanism, cutting-edge graphics, huge exclusives, doesn’t really matter. What matters is that the console sets itself apart from the competition. The one thing Nintendo consoles always have – Nintendo franchise games – barely made an appearance in the Wii U presentation.
The Wii U launch was surprisingly short on surprises.
7. Announce DVD support
I wanted to add “and Blu-ray support,” but let’s keep things slightly realistic. Nintendo has clearly stated (post-E3) that the Wii U will not play DVDs or Blu-rays. The official reason?
“The reason for that is that we feel that enough people already have devices that are capable of playing DVDs and Blu-ray, such that it didn’t warrant the cost involved to build that functionality into the Wii U console because of the patents related to those technologies.”
I find this reasoning a little bizarre. First, licensing technologies for DVD playback is cheap. Dirt cheap. If Wal-Mart can sell a 1080p upconverting DVD player – with HDMI – for $24 USD (at the time of this writing) the licensing technology is not expensive.
As if that statement weren’t bizarre enough, there’s the observation that “enough people already have devices that are capable of playing DVDs and Blu-ray.” This makes even less sense. By this logic, cell phone manufacturers should not include the ability to play music or browse the web or play games. After all – people already have lots of devices that can do this. Does anyone really believe that more people would have bought PS3s if Sony turned off Blu-ray playback and cut the console price by $10? Or that Microsoft would have sold more 360′s if they removed DVD playback and cut the price by $5?
Additionally, one of the major benefits of having a controller capable of streaming video from a base console would be the ability to watch DVDs – a form of physical media – on a controller without an attached drive.
Nintendo really blew this one. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that the Wii U would be much more tempting if it had full DVD playback and streaming support.
6. Announce some kind of DSi/3DS and Wii U interaction capabilities
It seems extremely odd that Nintendo would release a home console with a big emphasis on “a controller with a screen”without mentioning their handheld devices. After all, Nintendo is no stranger to interaction between a handheld device and a console. They’ve been experimenting with that technology since the N64 days.
If a 3DS – with its dual cameras, touchscreen, gyroscopes, and wireless card – or even a DSi could be used in place of a Wii U controller (or alongside it), I imagine a lot more people would be interested in purchasing a Wii U.
Instead, Sony was the only console manufacturer to discuss console/handheld interaction. Hard to believe Nintendo had nothing to say about this.
5. Give concrete details on the Wii U’s online capabilities
In a lot of ways, the Wii U looks to be the most antisocial console in history. (Besides possibly the Virtual Boy.)
“Do other people want to watch a show? Don’t join in – instead, keep doing what you’re doing on the console!”
“Want multiplayer? Too bad! We’ve only planned for one Wii U controller per console!”
The messaging is bizarre. I really hoped Nintendo would announce great online features to make up for the antisocial nature of the Wii U controller, but what happened instead? Brief statements like this, from Katsuya Eguchi:
“I can’t go into details… We’re trying to find new experiences… In looking at the approaches on the Xbox and PlayStation – what they’ve done and what people have responded really well to – we’ve definitely considered including those kinds of experiences, and we think that our third parties also want those as well… but there are also things Nintendo does and other companies haven’t. We need to balance out what exactly what we need to bring to the user to bring the best experience possible.” [source - kotaku]
That’s an awful lot of words… that tell us nothing about the online capabilities.
A few days later, during a call with investors, President Iwata gave this longer explanation:
To start, I’ll have to say that I don’t have any materials with me today that can illustrate precisely what our online environment will be like, but I can speak generally about the direction that we are moving in.
I think, in general, the online environment is changing quite rapidly.
So, what I have come to feel lately is that the idea of saying, “we are going to create this style of online structure and that we would like you, the developers, to fit into the online structure that we are creating” is perhaps already out-of-date.
I think that Nintendo’s past console business has often included this idea of a set and fixed online structure. So, I think that, going forward, the question is really to what degree Nintendo can create a more flexible system for its consoles.
And, what we found at this point is that, as we discuss the online structure with different publishers, the things that the different publishers want to do are in fact seemingly rather different.
Our current direction is how we can take the desires of the third parties and create a system that’s flexible enough to enable them to do the types of things that they might want to do.
So, for example with the question of VoIP, I think then what we would like to do is work with them on how to enable them to do that. But, what we’re not going to do is to consider as prerequisite conditions that every game includes features like that because obviously there are some developers who may not want to do that.
As for social networks, after examining the penetration and adoption rate of social networking services like Facebook, etc., we’ve come to the conclusion that we are no longer in a period where we cannot have any connection at all with social networking services.
Rather, I think we’ve come to an era where it’s important to consider how the social graph of the social networking services can work in conjunction with something like a video game platform.
So, once we get to a point where we’re able to talk more concretely about our online plans, I think that once you hear what we’ll have to say, you’ll feel that Nintendo has a policy of adapting itself to changes in the network environment in a flexible fashion rather than the one of sticking to a rigid mechanism, or perhaps you’ll notice that we have found ways to take advantage of these types of features like VoIP and social networking, where our systems have been seen as being weak in the past. However, unfortunately, we won’t be able to share anything concrete today.” [source - andriasang]
Confused yet? I know I am. All those words tell us basically three things:
- Nintendo “can’t afford to have no connection” to social networking services. (no kidding)
- Nintendo is considering optional VoIP services.
- Nintendo still isn’t sure what the Wii U’s online services will include.
Being this far into the console’s development and having nothing concrete to say about the online capabilities is concerning.
4. Announce a late 2011 launch date
I think most gamers are excited about the Wii U sharing in great exclusives like Battlefield 3 and Arkham City. However, these games are launching in 2011. The Wii U won’t launch until 2012. That means that if you want to play any of the year’s biggest multi-platform launches on the Wii U, you will have to wait a year (or more!) after the game’s release on other platforms.
Are a lot of gamers really going to purchase an additional copy of Battlefield 3 just to play it on the Wii U? I doubt it. Sharing a multi-platform library with the PS3 and 360 is awesome, but not if major games release a year late.
3. Announce support for achievements/trophies
Some gamers don’t care about achievements and trophies, but I think most care at least a little. After all – when even Minecraft adds achievements, there must be a market for it. True cross-platform support means not just releasing the same games, but releasing the same games with the same features. If the Wii U doesn’t include support for some kind of achievements/trophies, that’s one more reason to purchase them on another platform.
2. More actual Wii U gameplay footage
The announcement that the Wii U game montage was all 360 and PS3 footage wasn’t surprising, but it was disappointing. Anyone who has played Bayonetta or Bioshock on PS3 or Final Fantasy XIII on 360 knows that “multi-platform” does not necessarily mean “equal experience on all devices.” Even if two systems share relative hardware parity – like the 360 and PS3 – individual developers are still capable of releasing vastly different ports. A lot of PS3 ports in particular were not developed by the original game company, but outsourced to someone else (like the aforementioned games, and others like Orange Box).
Just because the Wii U may have comparable hardware – something we don’t actually know for certain – does not mean it will deliver a comparable experience to existing consoles, in the same way that PS3 ports of 360 games have often seen significant drops in quality.
This means that the only actual footage we have of Wii U is a simple, relatively underwhelming tech demo. Tech demos have never been indicative of actual hardware capabilities. Remember the FF7 tech demo for PS3? How many PS3 games have actually looked that good? When the game system doesn’t have to process AI, or user-controlled movement, or positional audio, or pre-loading of true open world environments, you can make very pretty graphics. Add in any of those other things – all of which are required for an actual game, and all of which require horsepower – and you have less power left for graphics.
When announcing a new console, a company needs more than just a single tech demo on display.
1. Announce a price
It’s clear that Nintendo has a price point in mind for the Wii U. I don’t blame them for waiting to announce it – after all, a lot could change by its launch in 2012. The PS3 and 360 are both likely to receive price drops between now and then, and their respective motion-control add-ons (Move and Kinect) will probably see price drops too. Nintendo must be waiting for that to happen before announcing a Wii U price.
That said, leaving people to speculate for a year isn’t a great idea either. We do know that it will cost more than the Wii. No surprise there. But if the 360 and PS3 both receive price drops, that means that Nintendo’s new console – which has similar graphical capabilities, but can’t do things like play DVDs or Blu-ray – is going to cost more money. We also don’t know what games are going to cost. We don’t know what the controller will cost. We don’t know if online will be free.
The PS Vita price announcement was very well received. Nintendo could have stolen its thunder with a great price announcement of its own. Instead, we’re left to wonder what the price might be – and while everyone is hoping for a price like $299 USD, the launch price could easily be $349 or $399. Unlike the Wii, the Wii U doesn’t look like it’ll be a “bargain console.”
Conclusion
The Wii U could be a very interesting addition to the console landscape, but so far its launch has been rough. As a Nintendo fan, I really hope they do a better job with Wii U development than they have done with Wii U marketing.
Otherwise, I’ll probably save my excitement for the Xbox 720 and PS4.
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