I remember standing in line outside of my local Target on Black Friday, and a guy on the phone with his friend was behind us saying, “Yeah...yeah, the Wii U...I just, I dunno if it’s a new console or just like an add-on. I don’t know what the hell it is!” So yeah, their marketing wasn’t too good.
Yeah, I used to work part time at Best Buy when Wii U first launch. I remember spending most of my shift explaining to parents what the Wii U is. Nintendo did poor marketing job on this console.
I just watched a video from an outside source explaining what's up with the WiiU, and I'm STILL not entirely sure what it is or what spot it was supposed to fill on the market.
@@NYCKZ360 At least with that one Microsoft discontinued the Xbox One X months before the Series X came out so you'd never have the two being sold along side eachother at a store. (Then again the Series X isn't sold in store either lol)
I remember thinking it was gonna be amazing and then after playing it, the gameplay felt crude. Sure there was the game pad interactions but fighting the zombies felt more like chore.
My most precious memories of the WiiU were when I discovered Xenoblade's messaging functions were backended on the Miiverse and I got banned a whole lot from it accidentally by calling certain monsters insufferable fuckwits.
The Wii U was like that poorly managed coffee shop where where a fortunate few got to know how great the drinks were, how fun the staff was, and how cool the customers were. But we all knew it was going to close down soon.
The Miiverse was a major aspect of the Wii U for me. Being able to pause the game and go directly to a community where I could post questions or funny pictures was huge. I really wish they bring this feature to the switch, the sense of community is lost on the switch. Specially with COVID, having an online community from within a game would be big for games like animal crossing
I understand why they shut it down. With all the trolling and filter bypassing going on it was bad PR for Nintendo. However, I'd love to see it come back with a better moderating team and filtering, it was a really good service, way better than anything the competition had. Also, while you're at it Nintendo, add voice chat to the Switch instead of through a shitty online app.
Agreed. I think the main reason they didn't bring it back was that it was impossible to moderate, so they couldn't really keep it pg. Lots of swearing, rape jokes, and people drawing boobs. Hopefully one day they might integrate something similar, but let a bigger company control it like Facebook or something
Honestly maybe that's a good thing could you even imagine what it would have been like in the election? Nintendo would have been pulling their hair out.
When I first heard about the WiiU, I thought it was just a peripheral for the Wii. "Why would I spend $250 on a touch screen?" The advertising and communication was so bad...
@@russellbrown6888 Marketing is key. Saturn failed due to poor marketing and the fact the 32x and Sega CD existed. Sega competed against itself and died. Wii U is pretty obvious, and design is key too.
Yeah the one thing the Wii U did better than the Switch was the e-shop, with all the different categories and VC. Switch e-shop needs a good UI overhaul.
I think of that as more of Nintendo's desperate attempt to sell the Wii U, which still ended up in failure. What with it's lack of library in comparison to other consoles and such, especially during the early parts of it's lifespan. With the Switch, does it really need it that badly?
@@byronlyons3548 It's still a huge business opportunity to bring virtual console to the switch. Nintendo is seeing zero profit from leaving the retro gaming market to ebay scalpers, after all.
"The Wii U had plenty of great games." Well done for identifying that straight away. It always frustrates me when people claim the Wii U had no games, when it's library is super solid.
@@megamix Pretty confusing post. So, because a game got ported, the entertainment it afforded on the original console is invalidated? My friends and I have wasted so much time playing Mario kart 8 years before it existed on Switch. Does this also discount most of ps4 and xbone's libraries as they're largely remakes and ports? I guess I should have sold my xbone and ps4 years ago. Also good thing I'm waiting for ps5 slim because there's only 1 game available on it and it's just a tech demo.
@@sodaftpm185 Yes, they were ported to the Switch. Does that invalidate their Wii U versions and existences? The console still had those games, and therefore had a solid library.
If the games had been shitty on WiiU they never would've gotten ported to switch They got ported because they were gems on a less than stellar platform, so Nintendo gave those good games another chance for more people
@@megamix I think it's the other way around tbh, those ported games shouldn't really be counted for the Switch since they're basically the same, with like one or two things at best. It's also a money saver if you already had them on the Wii U, because like i said, they were mostly the same thing, but the ports were full price for some reason.
Even the ports are good. I love both Arkham City and Ass Creed Man Flies A Black Flag on Wii U, for the map functionality alone. Sometimes, the simple quality-of-life stuff makes a stronger impression than wacky Nintendo Land gimmicks.
I’m really curious who the marketing “genius” at Nintendo was that thought it would be a good idea to heavily focus on the game pad to the point people couldn’t figure out if it was a new console or not. I honestly thought it was an add-on like a modern day 32x or disc drive up and into launch.
It probably made sense at the time. The Wii was synonymous was the WiiMotes and many games used those heavily. The gamepad was likely expected to be what the WiiMote was to the Wii. Nintendo probably figured the "innovation" from the gamepad would be sufficient. Plus, they were always "behind the times" in other aspects. The Wii didn't look like much, was pretty weak and not the best for online multiplayer. So Nintendo probably thought the WiiU's marketing was good enough.
Yes, but isn't it sad that in order to become more popular it had to be ported to its successor? I mean, it sold well on the Wii U, but it had a lower userbase than the Switch.
Wii U has one MAJOR advantage over all other consoles ever: Virtual Console & emulation. With the Wii U's vast input styles, it can play almost any game (provided it has the power to do so) amazingly. This includes N64, Nintendo DS, GBA, GameCube, Wii (natively), 3DS, SNES, NES and more! You can even plug in a gamecube controller with the official GameCube Adapter and play gamecube games- ON YOUR WII U. And DS games, with it's touch screen, works great too! That alone makes this the best emulation device for playing retro games and has the Switch and others beat entirely.
@@jjcoola998 You emulate Wii U titles in Cemu, not Dolphin. And even then- a lot of games can't be emulated on your PC conventiently. This includes DS and 3DS games, which make use of the second touch screen. Furthermore, you need a special Sensor Bar accessory exclusively for Dolphin to connect a Wiiremote to it, wereas on Wii U you simply play the game natively on your console **without** any emulation at all.
You can play Gamecube games on the pad itself by using Nintendont. It's really cozy even if the pad itself is fairly heavy and doesn't beat a real gc controller. It's also possible to inject different games into Virtual Console games, but that can be a hassle with compatibility issues. I re-injected Hotel Dusk like 20 times into different base games and it was always a bit glitchy.
I had entire friendships that started and ended with the lifespan of the WiiU. Game nights of drinking with smash bros and mario kart they were good times.
Nintendo consoles are FAR better for local play with friends. There's more support, the consoles are much more portable, and they output a lot less heat to the room. 2 Wii U's output less heat than one 360 Slim. That being said, they should have let you use the Wii U without the gamepad, both for preservation and so you don't have to lug both and their respective power adapters to your friends houses. Oh yeah, and why is the gamepad charger proprietary? At least make it USB on one end, although I guess they didn't want to since the Wii U USB ports were so weak. Heck make it the 3DS port, yeah the 3DS charger would charge it slow, but it would work in a pinch.
@@shanez1215 I don't think anybody gives AF about the heat coming from a console with a group of people gaming, lmao. All my homies had Wii U including me but we never played it. Always Xbox and PS cause that's where the real fun games were. Mario Kart n Party and shit like that are fun for maybe 20 minutes, but get boring quick unless you are a child.
@@addictedtoRS not really, Mario Party is a lot of fun imo. It might be simple, but so are Atari games, and there’s plenty on the 2600 that I still love playing with my friends and stuff
The homebrew Wii U scene is actually pretty great, I have to say. Turning my Wii U into an emulation machine was one of the better ideas I've had. Hold up, FBI is knocking on my door.
That isn't what homebrew means FYI. Homebrew refers to games made for older systems by fans. Brewed at home one might say. Not trying to be a jerk, just spreading information. Apologies if there is some Wii U scene of fan made games that I am not aware of. EDIT: I do owe you an apology, turns out the term homebrew is somehow tied to jailbreaking a Wii U. Ah well, the word used to mean what I said.
@@no_nameyouknow Yeah, sometimes, a word loses its original meaning when it becomes more mainstream. Homebrewing is synonymous with jailbreaking now, even though that is not what it originally meant.
@@njdevs1987 AS a proud owner of the ps vita let me tell you that there are mods that allow to put an SD card in the game slot of up to 256gb and you can still purchase all digital games legit and get trophies
Certainly a failure in the West, but far from it in Japan. The Vita had so much support in Japan alone that it often had more games coming out for it year after year than any other console.
@@RoboZombie777 haha true. But is it really still happuning? I haven't heard any news about it. That's why i want to know... Wha happun... Or happuning, maybe in another 6 years 😅
I think you nailed everything for gamers pretty well. I will add one more for parents: The Wii U gamepad was paired permanently with the console which meant if had a game pad issue and it was under warranty I had to ship back the console and the gamepad, and if I wasn't, I couldn't just go buy a new gamepad if there was a problem. in addition, that meant there was only one gamepad per console. I specifically told my father-in-law not to buy our kids a Wii U, but he still did. We went from our kids enjoying the multiple Wii-motes for the Wii, to fighting over the single gamepad, to breaking the gamepad.
The Wii U: You know the motion controls that made us billions, yeah how about if we don't do that, but keep the name, general audiences will get it! At least in the future, no company would name their next major console with only a slight name change instead of a new fresh different name or numerical number, that would be a whoopsy!
@@pumpum4058 It’s called Xbox Series X | S, One isn’t part of the name, but it would’ve been less confusing to call it Xbox Series, Xbox Ceres, or something else entirely.
@@TonyJenn nope, that was a tweet from some random journalist that gaming media took as an absolute truth. I'm not saying it never happened, but there is not proof that most of that Xbox One X spike on Amazon was due to mass confusion.
Odd he didn't mention that in the Video. People not knowing that the Wii U is an actual Console probably hurt it's Sales the most. He talks about that the Name is a Problem, but not why. Even I myself thought the Wii U was just an add on to the original Wii. I didn't know it was its own Console until they announced the Switch.
The fact that Breath of the Wild, a game that had Link use a gamepad-esque type item throughout, doesn't have absolutely any gamepad features is proof that the Wii U idea was a failure.
@@donkeykongisbetterthanmari7495 Nah, I'd argue the WiiU was a poor console since it didn't really do anything great. The gamepad's few benefits for navigating menus weren't really that much more convenient than the quick menus games already had (and arguably were worse since you'd be distracted using them)
"Make it HD, give it more horse power, improve the motion sensors even further [...]" I love that it basically describes the Switch (barring a few details) and it was a huge success.
But Nintendo should went a bit farther and put more power in it for station mode then they could now unleash the full power if the switch and make a PR Stunt every game running now in 1080P60fps xD
for me my favorite games on the wii was wii sports and on the wii u was some raving rabbids board game and well of course nintendo land also sucks that mii verse got shut down
I think the real issue was the gamepad was a bulky handheld console that you had to play with your tv screen. The tablet is basically the gamepad, if you didn't want to play it outside then put it down and detach the controls. Nintendo were onto something, and it the Wii U's short lifespan to get to the Switch.
And knowing the cuts of the 2000 version from the 1000 version. Not even talking about the screen, but the confirmed capability of display output to a TV until they decided to cancel it, making that one port in the 1000 useless. All to “not compete with our own PS4 in sales”.
I loved playing new smb u with my wife. I played on the TV and she used the gamepad to place blocks and help. One of the best and most unique co op experience. Wii u deserved better.
I must admit, for the longest time I thought the Wii U was just a peripheral for the Wii, so I didn't even bother looking into getting it. Once I did though, it's actually a genuinely fantastic console with a terrific library of games and an awesome virtual console too. It really was the marketing that killed the Wii U, cause the console itself was fantastic. I mean, it can also play all Wii games and use Wii peripherals, so it can literally do everything the Wii can do. If the Wii is a great console, then the Wii U is better.
I never really felt burned until Breath of the Wild came out and I was sitting there with my awful gamepad thinking "oh wow this would be a lot easier if there was a map on my gamepad instead of... nothing..." and then I researched the reason why.
@@andreicecold4379 You loved breath of the wild. The Wii U was just the vehicle. It's objectively better on Switch, and even more so on PC, ironically via Wii U emulation.
@@no_nameyouknow I don’t mean to be ‘on behalf’ but I think they just mean it’s still serviceable to play BotW on an actual Wii U. There’s little point in doing so if/when you have a Switch and can run cemu efficiently though, yeah.
I remember when reviewtechusa covered minecraft coming to wii u and mojang saying "using the 2nd screen for inventory management, that's a novel idea, but we're just going to mirror the tv screen." Perfect explanation of how little devs thought about the gamepad.
...why didn't they just do that to begin with? I adore the Wii U to bits but it wasn't necessary for the Switch to happen- they should've made a portable console- which is such an obvious idea how the hell did they miss the chance- in the first place.
@@DTheAustralian I felt like the engineers saw an opportunity to build on the Wii’s success and implant the idea of console gaming on a handheld to the masses. To you and me, it’s brain dead simple. To the people who write the checks...they would definitely see Switch as denying them revenue. Throughout the Wii, DS, 3DS and Wii U runs Nintendo had two ways to profit off a series. Switch kills that “Handheld” market for them but can’t hold up to other modern home consoles.
I'm still waiting a "What Happened" ep about Metal Gear Solid V. Even have followed all the media press pre, during and post lauch of the game, I'm still baffled by what the fuck happened.
I still actively play the WiiU (And in fact, came here from playing it just a while ago). Though I guess nowadays it's basically my Xenoblade Chronicles X machine
This. XCX was basicly the only game that actually properly utilized the gamepad and was both accessable for more casual RPG gamers as well as a golden grail for the hardcore JRPG fanatics offering more content than most games would dare dream of. Switch port please!
I was working at Blockbusters in the UK when the Wii U came out, and honestly I had to explain to nearly every customer that mentioned it that it was a new console, and not just a remarketing of the original Wii. Only a handfull of people understood what it was, and even they didn't care!
Meanwhile, I turned my Wii U into an amazing homebrew machine. Being able to play GameCube games on the big screen with widescreen support and full progressive is amazing.
I loved the Wii U. especially as a college student, being able to use the tablet without waking up a roommate, plugging in my headphones, it was the perfect console. Smash, Bayonetta 2, the amazing offerings on the virtual console, I feel like the Wii U could have been marketed way better than it was.
You can just buy a replacement stylus, just make sure it's either official or licensed by Nintendo, otherwise there is the possibility that you scratch your screen easily, especially if you have no screen protector on it.
I remember as a kid I was super excited for the Wii U, but when I showed my parents they asked me what they were even looking at and I just looked at them lost because I DIDNT EITHER
Fun fact, the console itself had overwhelming security to prevent pirating, but none of that security was present on the gamepad, which ran the same software as the system. The gamepad was a gaping hole in the console’s security
As probably the world's biggest Wii U defender, I have to say no. The Switch easily could have existed without the Wii U- I'm surprised it didn't. EDIT: Just realised I made a reply similar to this earlier. Guess it needed to be said twice.
The Wii U is such a strange beast to talk about. In pretty much all regards, the console was a failure and the gamepad offered little to no innovation for the majority of games. But it still had some real fantastic titles. The HD remaster of Wind Waker is fantastic and one of the rare cases where the gamepad really did enhance the experience, being able to look at your map as you sailed and quickly swapping between weapons. It was a shame that they gave up by the time Breath of the Wild came out and didn't utilize the gamepad at all.
It would've been great to see those interviews of random locals being asked if they heard of the Wii U before in this. They mostly thought it was some weird college brand promotion for the Wii or something.
Mine´s till alive, but I´ve had to repair it twice. They said that they´re gonna stop repairing that soon, at least where I live. Sad. Gonna use it and enjoy it ´till it breaks, then I´ll proceed to give it proper burial
It's actually crazy how many people genuinely don't even know the Wii U ever existed, or thought it was just some add-on for the Wii. A LOT of people think the Switch is the successor to the Wii
Nintendo needs to make a new F-Zero. Idk why they haven't when captain falcon is one of their most iconic characters even tho he hasn't had an actual game in over 10 years
Nintendo never really gave it a proper chance. My Outlook on Nintendo will improve once they give F-Zero fans something of a proper entry (or anything that isn't another SNES port)
@@MakoShiruba that was just a rumor. criterion's ceo himself deconfirmed it. they as well as EA were never approached by nintendo to work on a new f-zero. and honestly why would they? f zero sells like shit.. f-zero as a whole has around 6.68 m sales arcoss ALL games. mario super circuit (the worst selling one) is at a 5.61m and that's just one game vs an entire franchise. plus remember falcon was already in smash for a pretty long time by that point yet it didn't really help at all. a new games would be really fucking cool and i would buy it instantly, but buisness wise it would be a pretty dumb move. they could just shit out a new dlc for mario kart with like 3 maps and make double the money a new f zero would make. i think i lot of people tend to forget that these are companies we are talking about here. they are not our friends, they don't make these games to brighten up our day or some shit. these are at the end of the day simply a bunch of products developed by software giants. no sane company would shoot itself in the foot just to make some dingus happy.
If you mean not needing Gyro, last time I played it the game had an option for non-Gyro play that made it so it was only turned on when you held down the fire button, sooo if that's your issue (even though I personally prefer Gyro because I find your reticle being tied to where your ship is looking REALLY dumb), well, it's already been solved
I remember I sort of inherited my sisters wii u when she moved out and honestly? I loved the thing. it had virtual console, RU-vid, a few decent games and worked pretty well. I didn't care much for the announcement but it inadvertently became the center of my living room set up a good portion of 2015.
You forgot about Wind Waker HD, that hasn't been ported yet either. Even though that and Xenoblade X are the 2 Wii U games that I wanted to play the most :(
He said wholey original. Twilight Princess doesn't count either because of that which is sad because the Wii U port is so much better than the old ones
Kirby and the rainbow curse however was fully original so there was at least one game Matt missed, (And wooly world got ported to 3ds instead of switch)
They may planning for zelda all stars next year let's say Zelda ocarina of time Zelda wind waker Zelda twilight princess Zelda skyward sword In one Package?
Ugh I remember when I was in retail having to explain to parents what this console was. It was like 20 minutes explaining you cant take the mobile screen to play games at mcdonalds or that they had to buy these other different wii remotes for other kids to play. Parents were concerned there'd be fighting over who got the big screen controller vs the wii remote.
Same here, I used to work part time at Best Buy when Wii U was around during the holidays. I remember spending most of my shift explaining to parents what the Wii U is.
The name is what killed it in my opinion. Like, I knew people who thought it was just a tablet add on for the wii, and they were like "I don't care about the wii [anymore] so why would I get a wii u?"
Deus Ex for the Wii U was an amazing port that used the gamepad really well. Xenoblade Chronicles X still is the reason to even own a Wii U until it eventually, maybe and hoepfully gets ported over to the Switch. Such an amazing looking game for the system.
I loved my wiiU. First console that i bought after 25 years. Also got my wife into gaming - together we've done about 1000 hours of mariokart, mario3d & yoshi's world. Even if it's flawed, it gave me hours of precious gaming. RiP upgraded Wii / downgraded Switch.
The virtual console was what kept me coming back to the Wii U for a long time. I'm disappointed they went for some crappy subscription/streaming based model that always requires you to be online for the Switch.
One important thing to touch on is that the console was incredibly slow. Just navigating the UI is painfully slow, and that's after the patch that close to doubled the speed of it.
An other problem with the Wii U : you can have only ONE gamepad... No very family-friendly. It wasn't possible to plug a second unit on a console, and I'm not sure there were any for sale as accessory.
For as much of a failure the Wii U was and how depressing it was being a Nintendo fan around that time, I still liked my time with the Wii U. The Console had a lot of issues but I liked the gamepad, the exclusives (before being ported to the Switch) were good and miiverse had its own charm which is missed. Thankfully the Switch is a great comeback for Nintendo and is probably my favourite gaming console of all time at this point.
The Wii U has a reason to exist! It‘s an amazing emulation machine, with a little homebrew and effort :) It can play all nintendo home console games up to its own generation, and many handheld games. I use mine to play gamecube games a lot recently!
I just bought a Wii U like a week ago and I gotta say, while Nintendo may have abandoned it the community support is incredible. And custom firmwares and homebrews are where it's at. There's literally a homebrew app store. And it has Retroarch. Just yesterday I downloaded about 200 gigs' worth of Wii U games, "for archiving purposes" Some notes: PROS - Wii games support which doubles the available library (you can also run GameCube games, apparently) - HD support - portable gaming without TV on a gamepad - sensor bars and motion controllers are a dime a dozen if you buy then in China CONS - Even 32 gig version lacks storage (e.g. Xenoblade Chronicles X take up ~20GB and a lot of single games are 8-12GB) It doesn't support SDXC so a max of 32GB SDHC card and USB 2.0 means max USB flash stick 128GB *OR* (the popular option) a bulky external USB hard drive (NOT USB 3.0) - gamepad is fairly terrible, my fingers got cramped playing Fast Racing Neo and the PRO controller is not cheap (if you manage to find one) (unless, again, you get a Chinese knock-off) - homebrews are somewhat finicky to set up but apparently not as hard as it used to be
Even though it was the second one that year and the fourth one overall, it’s still impressive that a Nintendo console launched with a 2D Mario game. Having that and Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed was pretty cool.
No one was going to buy what was believed to be a $300 Wii peripheral. Marketing matters, especially when the majority of your consumer base are barely even gamers.
