3. Marketing Needs A Shake Up
With the Wii U in particular, Nintendo have shown a questionable approach to their marketing. The Wii U received a distinct lack of advertising and clarity between announcement and launch, leaving a lot of people confused as to exactly what Nintendo were releasing. Having worked in retail when it released, I know a lot of people assumed it was just an updated Wii with a new controller rather than an entirely new console. Some thought it was just the tablet part, acting as an add-on to the Wii. And who could blame them? The Wii already had numerous add-ons like Wii Fit, Wii Zapper and the Wii Balance Board so why wouldn't people think the Wii U was just another add-on? Needless to say, I'm sure we weren't the only store who had a number of games returned because people thought that Wii U games were just new games for the Wii (despite obviously being different coloured boxes.) Mario recently suffered the same fate of unclear name confusion. Super Mario 3D World was a whole new 3D Mario game that came out in 2013. But what did that mean exactly? Super Mario 3D LAND came out two years previously for the 3DS and was a mostly side scrolling Mario game but with 3D features. Then came New Super Mario Bros. 2 and New Super Mario Bros. for the Wii U, which were both just side scrolling Mario games without 3D features. Confused yet? Well then comes the newest release Super Mario 3D WORLD, which is a direct sequel to the 3DS game but nothing to do with the New Super Mario Bros. series. Games and console alike need distinct branding and it just isn't happening with the Wii U. When you saw Mario Galaxy for the first time, you knew that it was an entirely different experience than that of Mario Sunshine or Mario 64 before it. Recent Mario games have all melded together in a confusing pot of awkward, lazy titles. All the confusion resulted in Mario 3D World having the worst debut of any 3D Mario game since Mario 64. Nintendo need to decide exactly what 3D means when it comes to their game titles. Is it 3D because it's on the 3DS and has that 3D effect? Or is it 3D because it's a 3D platformer like Mario 64? It's so confusing I had to take a break after writing this section. Additionally, Nintendo have easily the worst television advertisements of the big three companies. Sure, getting Robin Williams to promote Zelda was a good idea since he loves the games so much he saw fit to name his child after it. The rest however were laughable. Especially the UK ads, where they carted out so called celebrities to pretend they cared about their consoles. I know they were going after a family market but does anyone care about seeing JLS or Ant and Dec pretend to be gamers? Or how Girls Aloud feel about Nintendogs? At a time when consumers are less and less willing to spend money, Nintendo were very short sighted. They should have released a console with a distinct new name to make people aware it was new and to compete with the Xbox and PlayStation. And as previously mentioned, the launch titles for both Nintendo consoles were a poor effort.