After the success that they had with the Wii, Nintendo was expecting something similar with the release of the Wii U. Unfortunately, the Wii U hasn’t come close to achieving the success of its predecessor.
The disappointing sales figures of the Wii U led to the company turning their focus on another product, the Nintendo 2DS. The release of the 2DS proves that Nintendo is willing to give up on certain features on a product if it will help the bottom line. In this case, the company gave up on the 3D feature of the Nintendo 3DS, in order to boost sales.
Industry insiders are wondering if the Japanese giant is planning the same for their Nintendo Wii U. Over the years, the company has been known for its stubbornness. In the 1990s, they were the leading console makers in the world, but the tide started changing when they refused to have blood in their version of Mortal Kombat for the Super Nintendo. Sega wasn’t bothered by the blood, and allowed it on their console, which helped them gain some ground on Nintendo during the console war.
The same thing happened with the Nintendo Wii, instead of going with Blu Ray capabilities, they stuck with DVDs. They were still able to outsell the PS3 and Xbox 360, but that had more to do with the price of the consoles than anything else.
When it came to the 3DS, the handheld console didn’t sell as many units as the company expected because the 3D feature, which was supposed to be a game changer, did not work as expected. This made Nintendo relent and take out the feature, and release the 2DS, in hopes of salvaging the platform.
With the Wii U, insiders predict that Nintendo will take a wait and see approach. If the 2DS does well, they will be forced to accept that their approach to the Wii U was wrong, which will lead to the company revising the console and released again in the future.
Nintendo has already tried to improve the sales of the Wii U console by reducing the price by $50. Obviously, the price drop will improve the sales a little, but it won’t be as significant as the company hopes. Another problem with dropping the price on the Wii U is that they can only drop it so much before it starts eating into their profit margin.
The smart play by Nintendo will be to learn from their mistakes like they did with the 3DS, and revise the Wii U, and make it more appealing to gamers, and try to build some momentum for their next console release.