My thoughts on how to save the WiiU.

The WiiU has been a pretty large failure in terms of being able to pull the major third parties back to Nintendo’s system. The WiiU was designed to give the hardcore a Nintendo platform they could play all their normal 3^rd person shooters and FPS’s on, as well as Nintendo’s latest and greatest Mario and Zelda games. They started out well with Mass Effect and ZombiU, but since launch none of the major third party games have gone to the WiiU (Bioshock Infinate, Crysis 3, Skyrim, Saints Row: The Third, Battlefield 3 etc). This lack of support from the third parties has been compounded by Nintendo’s complete lack of major games for the system a year after launch, Pikmin 3 being the first really ‘new’ WiiU game from Nintendo.

This has resulted in pretty horrible sales figures for the WiiU [1, 2, 3], not only this but third parties have been slowly walking away from the system.

With the WiiU struggling to compete even with systems that are (on a performance level) even with it, it seems silly and foolish to think that it will be any better when the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 launch later this year.

So with that in mind, these are my suggestions on how to make the WiiU a value proposition for general consumers and people who want a good gaming system from Nintendo.

1. Drop the name. The marketing has been part of the problem for the WiiU since launch. Its name and marketing have resulted in people confusing it as a Wii accessory, because why wouldn’t they? It’s mostly advertised with the controller up front and the actual system in the background and it has Wii as part of its name, not Wii 2 but WiiU… what does that even really mean? My Suggestion, Super Wii. With a name like Super Wii there is absolutely no confusing it with being an accessory, it sounds like a better and improved Wii as well as harking back to Nintendo’s amazing history in the console market.
2. Stop charging for NES games. There are systems on the market now for less than $100 that will allow you to run an emulator (for free) and then you can very easily fill up a very cheap memory stick with the entire NES catalogue if you wanted and run NES games for free on a very cheap system that you can then use for other things. Nintendo cannot compete with this kind of market, so don’t try. By offering up NES games for free on both the 3DS and Super Wii they would make people go to the online stores they have and use them. It would also mean that anyone who bought a Super Wii would have access to all the games from the NES that they wanted on an official Nintendo system. Giving the Super Wii a value to people who have already moved on to Microsoft and Sony systems but still love playing those old games.
3. Create a WiiU Ambassador system. This was a great idea when they did it for the 3DS and they should do it again post Super Wii relaunch. With this program your profile gets a special icon next to your Mii avatar, but you also get complete access (for free) to the SNES library. This means that people who have already invested in the system (the people helping Nintendo stay alive) are being rewarded and given a reason to actually turn the system on, rather than simply reading about delays to the next major Mario or Zelda titles.
4. SNES games for $1-2 each. Emulators make SNES games as easy to emulate as NES games, but they still look and play better than most phone games and still have a value based almost solely on that. But they pricing needs to be competitive and they need to be easily accessible. Apple did it with music using the iTunes store, charging 99c a song, Nintendo can do the same with SNES games. Having NES games for free and then the majority of all the SNES games for next to nothing would mean that people could pick up a Super Wii and have access to all their favourite Nintendo games and be able to play them on their TV with a proper controller, without having to buy someone else’s system.
5. Console redesign. The Super Wii should be akin to something like the Wii Mini, there is no need for Nintendo to have such an expensive system, make it a top loader, make it from cheaper plastics, reduce the cost it takes to make the system. On top of that, recolour the system so it matches the colouring of the SNES (greys and purples), to set it completely apart from the WiiU.
6. Lower the price. With PS3’s and 360’s dropping in price and the pre-orders already selling out for the PS4 and XBone’s they need to be able to compete.

By giving the system a new name, look and value proposition Nintendo would make the Super Wii not only the place for Mario, Zelda and other Nintendo games it would also make it the place to get all your favourite Nintendo games from history without having to spend much money doing so. Gamers who skipped on a Wii could pick up a Super Wii and have access to all the great Wii games as well as all the classic Nintendo games and any future games.

Nintendo has to do something if they want to survive, they have (for whatever reason) committed to making a new home console, they have to make it work.

I think the install base is one major problem.

The other major problem is also the amount of work it takes to port the game.

RIght now it takes very little work to port a game from PC to Xbox and vice virsa.

I think it takes a lot more effort to port from the PC/Xbox to the Ps3 but a lot of devs that make Ps3 games probably have learned a lot about how to do this ( and it looks/sounds like sony has become very helpful in the last couple years )

But it seams like ( and I have no experince porting anything, nor have I ever actualy looked into it ) porting a PC/Xbox game to the Wii U or Wii would be like porting a game from a Modern PC to the Atari.

I'm thinking hara-kiri

Release a $50m dollar Pokemon game, like, next week.

I imagine a price drop looms in Nintendo's future. The Ambassador program was a great way to get me to buy a 3DS early, but I have not really touched any of those games. That said, they took a massive hit in terms of shareholder opinion when they pulled that move with the 3DS. I'm not surprised that they're skittish about establishing a precedent.

No way in hell are they going to try rebranding this late in the game, though. It'll just muddy the waters further. Plus, if they really do harken back to an earlier system, it won't be to re-hash the SNES. Plenty of people loved the SNES, no question, but I doubt anyone is really nostalgic for the way the SNES looked, save for a specific subsection of the audience that grew up with a SNES in the house. (Gray and purple? Really?) At least, none of the audience that was won over by the novelty of the Wii cared about the SNES. So Super Wii probably wouldn't hit the same way you'd expect.

Also, I get why they're trying to push against the idea that their games should be compared to cell phone games (and as such are not reducing prices to cell phone prices, for the most part - save for those random eShop deals.) Also I have no concept of what the overhead is on porting an older game to virtual console, but I get the feeling it probably takes more than we assume. At least, that came out when they basically said the 3D Classics stuff was going to stop.

Sad as it is, it seems like their best course of action is to do what they're doing. Get the install base up with first-party games and (probably) exploit existing relationships with publishers that have done well on the 3DS. (Thinking of Atlus, for example.) It's an incredible bummer that ZombiU under-performed and Rayman had to be pushed back to be a multi-platform title (though I have no illusions that Rayman is probably still going to be best experienced on the WiiU.)
Of course, the hopeful in me is that they'll start to embrace more weirdo/indie developers. Smaller budget projects that are more open to experimentation.

I think for 3rd parties, timing is the reason they are turning away.

The WiiU should have launched years ago.

All development teams are most likely being put on the task of prepping new software for all the new hard hardware coming out.

I love the WiiU, and I honestly was not sure I'd like it, but I have a feeling it was foolish to purchase one.

They do need to lower the price on snes games. I saw that Super Mario World was £5.49!!!! (which is about $8)

1) XB and PS are now inline with processors, GPU, drives, etc. Bring the next Nintendo system in-line with those specs. The difference will be keep the Wii-mote, controllers are where you set yourself apart. The truth is pinpoint 'accurate' motion controls don't make for good games. The motion system Nintendo has is the worst for accuracy, but all it it needs to do is games at the level of Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Wii Play, and nothing else.

2) Hire a junior executive in each region to assists the CEO in planning & timeline. These persons are there to HELP curate the games for a given year with a three year outlook, these person is there to make sure the BIG PICTURE is seen by the CEO of each region. No more droughts, no more months of no games on the console...ever. These people also keep track of what people want. If people want a European game in N. America they look for that and recommend it to teh people in charge.

3) Spend some of those billions on twice the amount of internal development teams. Develop new IPs, even if half fail to catch on that okay. Second, all your 'heads of studios' who have only made Mario, Link, Donkey Kong, Kirby, F-Zero, Nintend-anything games should be told/forced to work on NEW IPs. All you new hires should be put on their FIRST Nintendo game. All of the old guard should be required to make two new IP games before they even get to assist on an old-IP again.

4) Beg, borrow or steal THREE executives for Third party relations. These executives only jobs is to support 3rd parties and they should report directly to the Presidents and chief operating officers of each region. In four years time Nintendo should have games being made by the top 50 third parties worldwide. In four years developers and publishers should say Nintendo is the easiest, most helpful and most useful console partners in the industry.

5) Disband, destroy, and remove the people from the "Comprehensive Development Group". This group currently sits above all the other internal development studios judging projects, and they KILL innovation. How do they do this? They are Shigeru Miyamoto, Takashi Tezuka, Takao Sawano...that's how. Don't allow any of those guys in development meeting for any of your other studios. If Shigeru wants a studio give him ONE, but give him no oversight for games that are not his current project...EVER.

• 1. Drop the price down. Now. Way down.
• 2. Attract indies, lots of them.
• 3. New IPs. It has been over decade than me or anybody I know has cared about Mario.
• 4. Redesign Nintendo's image. Now it is more child like and obnoxiously sugary than it is fun. Good old Nintendo had balance, modern one does not.

Lowering the price would bring it into a lot more people's hands, that's definitely #1. If they dropped it to $199, I'd probably just pull the trigger and buy one. I've been on the fence between Wii U and Vita, but that would do it for me. By lowering the price and increasing the install base, they could garner a lot more developer support. I think indie support rivaling that of PS4's indie lineup would be phenomenal. If indie devs had incentive to develop for wii U, that'd be fantastic. I know smaller scale games could take advantage of the Wii U's hardware more than Nintendo has been doing (i.e. Mario Kart's only screen functionality is a big horn button? You shitting me?)

Look, it's nice that people are trying to come up with constructive and creative solutions to the WiiU's many, many problems but I suspect that the time for quick thinking and bold maneuvers has passed. Nintendo, let me be the first to say it; Insurance fire. Lots of both.

There's a ton of games I want for it, something it seems not many others think. Points 1-5 are cool, but all it'll take for me is a price drop.

If Nintendo were to just give out games for free or for just $1 or $2 dollars, then how will you expect them to stay in business and make money? Even if you can emulate the older games for free, Nintendo has to make money somehow to do other projects and pay their employees. Also, Nintendo has invested a lot of money already in their system, and if they were to redesign it, what difference would it make for the demand? We're in a bad economy as it is. Sure the name of the console is terrible, but what's done is done. They have to deal with it and make the WiiU work other than changing the name, the console design, and the price of older games. Just face it, you just don't like WiiU, but you do like Nintendo.

I agree that they will need to lower the price of their system and create an ambassador program for the WiiU. I also believe that they need to deliver more enticing games other than Mario, and try to attract the third party publishers they desperately need. Bring back F-Zero, resurrect the Earthbound or Mother franchise, release a GOOD Metroid, make another Sin and Punishment game, and more! They'll have to make their console appealing through the use of that strange controller with different games and channels. I think that if they could allow apple iphone or android based games to be played on WiiU while maintaining the same price, then that'd be cool. (It'll never happen). They have a lot of work to do, so we'll see what happens.

But the mistakes people will make instead will be hilarious.

If I actually knew what would "save"(hyperbole at it's best. If it was failing Nintendo would be Bankrupt) the WiiU I wouldn't be sharing it with a bunch of forum jobbers, that's for sure.
I would probably tell the people who actually matter(even just in general, when compared).

All of those are good ideas, but none other than point 1 have any real chance in saving it.

They need system moving 1st and 3rd party software pronto.

To some of your points;

• By essentially giving away NES games and making SNES games super cheap there would be a reason for people to invest in a WiiU, becasue right now... there really isn't much of a reason at all. So yeah they would take a hit on games that have already been made and already exist on there servers, but in the process they would be giving the WiiU some value (which is what my blog is trying to do)
• I don't like the WiiU becasue it has no games that I care about, has a pretty desperate looking future and I dislike Nintendo becasue of how backward and incompetent they seem (them telling EVO they couldn't stream Smash Brother's being a pretty good example of how clueless they are).
• By giving the system a redesign, not only would it help a re-branding and re-launch it would make the system cheaper to produce, saving Nintendo money. Sony and Microsoft didn't simply redesign the PS3 and 360 for the sake of it.
• Bringing back old Nintendo franchises is great, but how can they possibly justify the cost when people are not buying there system. The goal of this blog is to create several things that can be applied to there current system without long term development and investment (bar the redesign). It's taken them a few years to simply put out a new Mario Kart, can you imagine how long its going to take them to make a new Metroid etc?
• Third parties will come when there is a reason to, Ubisoft have been pretty vocal of how much of an abject failure ZombiU was for them, and that wasn't simply the best launch game the system had, its the systems best game.

All I know is that if Nintendo cant convince anyone to buy the WiiU next year than there is no helping them.

Lowering the price won't help in the long term. It was either worth having or was not at certain point. The system needs games, it needs first party games most of all because that is what people "really bought into". But down the road to 'start building' new fans they need a system with a blances of first, second, and third party software.

The biggest issue Nintendo faces is they had not considered a real world world cost/benefit analysis on using the Wii U pad. They had a few mini-game ideas and few pipe dreams, but they really have put that pad in the box without a benefit cost analysis. The truth is they were too slow from the very start and the Wii U pad isn't worth having in the box. People own smartphones and tablets already, and the smart money was on utilizes those tools already in people homes...not trying to sell gimped tablets in their own box raising their own costs and limiting how quickly they could drop their own price.

The Wii U should have been a PlayStation 3.7 equivalent system that used Wii remote+ tech and came with a good 'fps ready' joypad in the box. No new paradigm for control needed to sell it, just a properly advanced system that uses both a Wii mote & very good joypad in the box. And they should have shipped THAT in 2011 for $400. The software would have been PC ports of console games, so they would look better & run faster thus justify i the upgrade for the core gamers. Yet, Nintendo itself could have shipped "nice family style" motion control Wii games too. Such a system would have been out two years earlier than PS4/XBOne, it could have built a nice base, and Nintendo would be ready to lower the nice this November thus undercutting the newer systems. PS4/XBOne games might look a tiny bit better, but it might not even have been noticeable.

But, Nintendo did NONE of that. So, now they have an even harder task that is riskier - kill off Wii U while make something else that will be out two years later than PS4/XBOne. Or, worse try to ride out Wii U for another two years and then somehow come out with another system three or four years behind PS4/XBOne.

New content for Wind Waker isn't really that compelling and it's still a remake and Super Mario 3D World would have been more novel if I didn't already play 3D Land on 3DS so meh. Bayonetta 2 and Wonderful 101 look cool but not enough for me to justify paying for an overpriced dated machine.

Nintendo needs a reality check if they think that their E3 showcase is going to be what saves them. Another Donkey Kong game? From Retro again? C'mon Nintendo, wise up.

Stop trying to develop games just for the Japanese market and start developing games for the worldwide market. I think the best example of this is Square Enix, now when I think of Square Enix I just don't think of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest but I also think of Sleeping Dogs, Deus Ex and Tomb Raider. That is seriously something I would of not thought of being possible 10 years ago. I'm not saying making games for the japanese market is bad but seriously you got to diversify a little bit, either that or make Mother / Earthbound 4.

I'm gonna change my final answer to just making a new Mother / Earthbound game.

All good points, but we have our different views. It's easy to say what a company should and shouldn't do, whether they do it or not. I really feel sorry for Nintendo, and I'm not really happy that I have a WiiU right now. I'm not pleased to see that they are making so many mistakes, because I've stuck with their consoles since childhood. I just hope that they will do at least something soon.

We can't save nothing that doesn't want to be saved.