Separating the Wii in the WiiU

Do you remember this commercial at all? This was during Gamecube’s final major push to convince the hardcore crowd that they indeed have some incredible games to satisfy the subculture. Now, we all know Gamecube would become Nintendo’s biggest failure not named Virtual Boy, and would ultimately force Nintendo to totally alter their strategy in terms of hardware and software. While the advertisement then did fail to push sales of the Gamecube, this was exactly the type of commercial that Nintendo needed to air this month.

The WiiU didn’t outsell the other systems during Black Friday simply because Nintendo could not separate the Wii reputation out of the new system that is clearly reaching out to the hardcore audience. The WiiU and the Wii were still joined hand-in-hand when the WiiU is essentially the 2006 system on HD steroids. I can guarantee you that the majority still see the WiiU as a simple update to Nintendo’s most successful system. There should be no reason that despite the WiiU selling nearly 450,000 copies on opening week, the original Wii managed sales of over 300,000.That’s at least 125,000 owners that will probably not consider buying the next generation system for at least a year.

The marketing failed miserably in showcasing the talent of the new system by not revealing the new features, not revealing Nintendo’s actual push for online gaming and the hardcore titles that feature Nintendo exclusives (unlike the Gamecube commercial displayed above), instead showing the world this:






It is not a bad commercial, but what separates Mario Bros. WiiU…. …from the Wii version? Aside from the tablet? They look virtually the same.It doesn't even seem like a next-gen game (although the game is partially to blame for that one too).

There is still no WiiU ad that shows that the tablet can become a full universal remote control (it just shows you can switch the game to the tablet), or pull off HD graphics, or allow for you to be able to see online videos while navigating away from the page into something else. The WiiU is a gaming system that can imitate a remote control, a movie player, and an interactive internet browser---at the same time!!!! 

We still don't really have an ad that even shows some of the exclusives available at launch or the holiday season. Remember this tease earlier this year?





If you even showed an abridged version of that video on television, it would have been far more effective than merely showing the families playing with Wiimotes and the only change is a gaming tablet attached. How could that warrant a $350 purchase? How would they know its HD, backwards-compatible, data-from-Wii transferrable, and extremely online friendly? How would they possibly know any of this?


Nintendo, you have a nice machine, I am enjoying it, but your advertising is going to result in the WiiU having a bumpy first couple of months.