Nintendo NX: 9 Things It Needs To Avoid Another Wii U Failure

6. Keep It Simple

The Nintendo Wii had one very simple gimmick - motion controls. Hardcore gamers hated it, but more casual consumers flocked to it like crazed sheep, and the console was a roaring success. The Wii U tried following up on this runaway success and building on it by clustering a bunch of disparate things that just didn't fit that well together. "Let's throw in a tablet, because people like those, but double it up as a gamepad (the biggest, heaviest and clunkiest gamepad in the world), oh and let's keep the motion controls in there too, because..."- Okay, stop, Nintendo. Just stop! Either have a gimmick, or don't. Make your minds up, otherwise you end up with a Frankenstein mess like the Wii U. With console gaming on the rise and with consoles being regarded as all-round media centres more than ever, the idea of a distinctly 'casual' gaming market like there was in the days of the original Wii has diminished somewhat. Nintendo should focus on creating a powerful games console with - at most - a single central gimmick attached to it. And the console shouldn't be over-reliant on that either, because AAA developers have already made it clear with the Wii U that they can't be bothered to tailor their biggest games for Nintendo's weird little idiosyncrasies. If there's anything we learned from the disastrous Xbox One launch, it's that gamers want their console to offer simple access to excellent games first, above all. The Wii achieved this, making its games seem more accessible than ever, while the Wii U made them seem cryptic and complex. Lesson? The NX needs to keep things simple.