What Nintendo tried to do with the Wii U presser

I am surprised that so few have grasped what Nintendo tried to do with this press conference. Granted, they failed miserably, but still.

This was an education effort. They know that the key to success, and to sales in general, is to educate the customer. In this case everyone needs to grasp the idea of asymetric gameplay. I feel they have not really found their “elevator pitch”, the one sentence that brings light into darkness and ease into worried minds. This is not easy to achieve even for simple products, but for a thing like the Wii U it is almost impossible. A Wii U is larger than just the hardware, it is a an idea, an abstract thought that is hard to convey. Communicating the Wii was much easier. All you have to do is to aim a camera on a guy that stands in front of a TV, frantically flailing about with that white stick in hand. It simply looked fun!

In the Nintendo E3 press conference, Katsuya Eguchi, a guy I am sure is a wonderful man, was ungratefully tasked with explaining the idea of asymetric gameplay via a mini game called Luigis Ghost Mansion. A game which in short is a reversed tag game and is quite easy to understand, but which he spent over 3 unsuccessful minutes explaining in a way that should be bottled and sold as a sleeping aid. The discrepancy between poor Katsuya and the E3 king of energy and short pitch efforts, Randy Pitchford (The man even has the word pitch in his name!) was enormous! His 30 seconds on what the Wii U GamePad does for gaming during his Gamespot appearance for Aliens: Colonial Marines did more for the Wii U than Nintendos Whole hour.

What they should have done is what they said they would do, namely show games. Less talk, more colours, explosions, cute thingys and strange gameplay that captures the mind. With great great games comes great realisations and I think that using the E3 press conference for an educational effort was an erroneous act. They should have invigorated their fan base with mind blowing videos, surprises and promises of a wonderful future. If they had been able to arouse the minds of gamers they would have sought out the knowledge by ourselves, would have read, spread and evangelized.

The know what the have to do but cant find the way to do it! This is, however, far from over and I adhere to the old wise men that says “Never bet against Nintendo”.

I am surprised that so few have grasped what Nintendo tried to do with this press conference. Granted, they failed miserably, but still.

This was an education effort. They know that the key to success, and to sales in general, is to educate the customer. In this case everyone needs to grasp the idea of asymetric gameplay. I feel they have not really found their “elevator pitch”, the one sentence that brings light into darkness and ease into worried minds. This is not easy to achieve even for simple products, but for a thing like the Wii U it is almost impossible. A Wii U is larger than just the hardware, it is a an idea, an abstract thought that is hard to convey. Communicating the Wii was much easier. All you have to do is to aim a camera on a guy that stands in front of a TV, frantically flailing about with that white stick in hand. It simply looked fun!

In the Nintendo E3 press conference, Katsuya Eguchi, a guy I am sure is a wonderful man, was ungratefully tasked with explaining the idea of asymetric gameplay via a mini game called Luigis Ghost Mansion. A game which in short is a reversed tag game and is quite easy to understand, but which he spent over 3 unsuccessful minutes explaining in a way that should be bottled and sold as a sleeping aid. The discrepancy between poor Katsuya and the E3 king of energy and short pitch efforts, Randy Pitchford (The man even has the word pitch in his name!) was enormous! His 30 seconds on what the Wii U GamePad does for gaming during his Gamespot appearance for Aliens: Colonial Marines did more for the Wii U than Nintendos Whole hour.

What they should have done is what they said they would do, namely show games. Less talk, more colours, explosions, cute thingys and strange gameplay that captures the mind. With great great games comes great realisations and I think that using the E3 press conference for an educational effort was an erroneous act. They should have invigorated their fan base with mind blowing videos, surprises and promises of a wonderful future. If they had been able to arouse the minds of gamers they would have sought out the knowledge by ourselves, would have read, spread and evangelized.

The know what the have to do but cant find the way to do it! This is, however, far from over and I adhere to the old wise men that says “Never bet against Nintendo”.

A definite release date would've been cool, But I know they need a little more push (Games) to actually do that.

The Wii U at the moment doesn't seem very appealing to me. They haven't convinced me that this tablet thing is necessary, added another controller (Wii360), and added that yes, you can even use the numbchuk and wiimote? You think that's enough controllers Nintendo? I can't fathom how much one of those tablets cost alone, and lets face it, you'll likely need more than one to play certain *first party games with friends. So 2 tablets, at least one Wii360 controller, the old Wii ones (unless you can find the ones you have, and they are Wiimote pluses or whatever they modified to justify selling the new ones). That's pretty steep, considering right now, the games just aren't there.

You want to educate people tell them a price and a release date.

But they have Arkham City!!!!

I'm not sold. I've wanted a new Pikmin game for a long time now, but they have not given me a compelling rationale to buy the Wii U other than eventually there will be a sufficient number of great first party games that Nintendo is known for, and I'm not seeing anything that I can't wait for a price drop for. I'm really not sure what they were think dedicating that much time to Arkham City, which really didn't offer me anything original to justify the contrivance of the pad, much less to buy a game that I essentially already own. Aliens:Colonial Marines or ZombieU would have at least made an impression other than the being the fashionably late version of a game that's been out for some time.

Well..

190 Million wiimotes out there that you can reuse with the Wii U

45 Million balance boards out there that you can connect to Wii U (Jeeesus, who knew!)

Back catalog with all Wii titles.

There are some reasons it is hard to count Nintendo out just yet. I just don't understand what the hell they are doing!

They tried to polish a turd.  They failed.
 
The WII U is a product without much of a consumer base.  Hardcore gamers looking for their next system are not going to buy a console that is going to be irrelevant a year after it comes out.  Casual gamers that liked the motion gaming and the fitness aspect are not going to be as intrigued by a touch pad controller. 
 
What exactly does the Wii U do well other than exist as the next launch point for Nintendo's major IPs?  IPs, by the way, that are becoming increasingly irrelevant with each passing year.

They would not have to embrace asymmetric game play so much if they just made the system capable of using multiple screened gamepads. That is the huge elephant in the room, the very premise of the system is based on the ownership of ONE very expensive gamepad in the home. Oh, sure now you can use two pads but reality is the tech does not support it with suitable fidelity and Nintendo will likely NEVER make a game that uses two pads at once.

Asymmetric game play is a nice concept to have as a choice, but as you said so much of what they want to push is that sort of gameplay...and it is confusing...it is also unequal at a base level. If you have ever seen tow kids squabble at who gets the bigger toy, the better toy you can see where this is going. A system for families where one person gets the interesting fun thing and everyone else gets a Wii-mote....wow, what a horrible idea.

Yeah, no. I think you're wrong, completely. That's not how you sell things. You make them pretty, shiny, and show what the system will have in it's library. You do NOT show fucking tech demos and the pack in months before the supposed release.