Nintendo Blames Tablets For Wii U’s Lack Of Success

It is no secret that the Nintendo Wii U is pretty much the red headed stepchild of the console world. Developers actively avoid developing for it, instead choosing to develop for Sony and Microsoft’s consoles instead, although thankfully Nintendo has very strong first-party titles otherwise we reckon the company would have been in much deeper trouble today.

So what went wrong with the Wii U? While there are many factors that could have caused the console to not perform as well as the competition, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto seems to think that tablets are to blame. Speaking to NPR, Miyamoto believes that due to the widespread popularity of tablets and how fast they grew that it ended up overshadowing the Wii U.

According to Miyamoto, “I think unfortunately what ended up happening was that tablets themselves appeared in the marketplace and evolved very, very rapidly, and unfortunately the Wii system launched at a time where the uniqueness of those features were perhaps not as strong as they were when we had first begun developing them.”

Basically tablets made the GamePad of the Wii U seemed “normal”, so perhaps had the console been launched much earlier and just like the original Wii, it would have a certain unique appeal to it. Miyamoto also admits that price was another factor as the console was priced a bit higher than most consumers were willing to pay for it.

That being said, Miyamoto appears to be optimistic about the company’s next-gen console, the Nintendo NX, which based on what he has said will be built on the lessons the company learnt from the Wii U. “After Wii U, we’re hoping that next time it will be a very big hit. But really what’s most important to us is, how do we create a system that is both unique and affordable so that everyone can afford it and everyone can enjoy it.”

Tyler Lee
Categories: Gaming
Tags: Nintendo, Wii U