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Nintendo Businesses

Nintendo's Disastrous Wii U Proves To Be the Switch's Secret Weapon (axios.com) 43

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Nintendo's worst-selling home console, the Wii U, continues to be the source for some of its biggest hits on the record-setting Nintendo Switch. From a report: With the Switch, Nintendo is putting on a clinic about how to turn prior failure into fortune as it repurposes games from the disastrous Wii U and tries selling them again on its newer hit device. The latest example of this salvaged success is the Switch's "Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury," which sold 5.6 million copies in its first seven weeks of release this year, according to new Nintendo financial data. Compare that seven week total to the just over seven-year total of 5.9 million copies sold of 2013's "Super Mario 3D World" for Wii U. The newer Switch game is basically the old game with a fun bonus adventure. The Wii U was a disaster even by Nintendo's usual cycles of occasional struggle and phenomenal fortunes. The 2012 successor to the popular Wii (remember swinging that controller?) bombed, with just 13.6 million units sold lifetime. Its big innovation: a home console with a controller that contained a screen, allowing players to keep playing their games using that screen when others needed the TV. But people didn't care and it was discontinued by early 2017.
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Nintendo's Disastrous Wii U Proves To Be the Switch's Secret Weapon More

Nintendo's Disastrous Wii U Proves To Be the Switch's Secret Weapon

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  • Just think of what could happen if Bethesda or Rockstar learn about this.

    • Super Skyrim Bros [nexusmods.com], GTA 5 Super Mario [gtacache.com] and GTA Kart V [pinterest.de]?
    • What're you talking about? Bethesda has already release Skyrim on every damn platform under the sun. I wouldn't be surprised if you could get it on a smart fridge. Maybe you meant some of their much older titles like Morrowind or even earlier TES titles, but those were made back in a time where Bethesda wasn't trying to milk their own customers and there are plenty of graphical mods to make Morrowind look like a more modern title.

      I don't think Rockstar had had any titles with underwhelming sales that rea

      • I bought Skyrim for the Switch just because it gave me the whole Skyrim world and all expansions on a little cart... without having to bend knee to Steam in any way. Also it was a $29 black friday deal 2-1/2 years ago.

  • Its big innovation: a home console with a controller that contained a screen, allowing players to keep playing their games using that screen when others needed the TV

    It also allowed that screen to be a second screen, and a touch screen at that.
    But yeah people didn't care...or were confused thinking it was an add-on to the existing Wii.

    • I'm just waiting for them to release a Switch controller with an extra screen. Then we will have come full circle.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luthair ( 847766 )

      Did people really think that? To me that has always seemed like a retcon myth.

      To me the problem was that people were over the motion controlled shovelware that was ever present on the Wii and that it came out after the tablet craze had ended.

      I find the state of the Switch annoying since I did have a Wii U with the core Nintendo games and I'm sure as shit not rebuying them - I think at this point the only relevant Nintendo games have been Odyssey and the remake of a Zelda game I played on the original GameB

      • My 12yr old begged me to buy little nightmares 2 on the switch after he watched a ton of DanTDM videos playing the game. You can also rebuy skyrim at full price (whats this the fourth re-release now?). IMO skyrim should start at $25 not $60. Its freaking like 8 yrs old now? It released during the PS3 originally.
      • Don't know how wide spread it was in society but all my kids friends where convinced that it was just some Wii extension when they brought them over to play on our Wii U at the time.
    • The wii kept wearing out. I had replaced one wii and the second optical drive was starting to shit when I bought the kids a wiiU. The fact it had a wii chip to play wii games made it a fairly easy choice. The Gamepad held up to some heavy wear and tear. Did not even need a screen protector. The switch, however, is glass and needs a tempered glass screen protector. Its not as rugged either. I usually make them keep it docked otherwise it has a leather case to help protect it, but its no otterbox.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • My sister was visiting and she was playing this game. I commented that the graphics were pretty crappy for a Nintendo switch current Gen Mario game. She mentioned that it was from a few years ago but they did a remastered version for the switch. Didn't think much of it then, but this article caught my eye.

  • We Have One (Score:4, Informative)

    by crow ( 16139 ) on Friday May 07, 2021 @11:40AM (#61359180) Homepage Journal

    We have a WiiU. We mostly got it because we didn't want to get rid of our Wii, but our new TV didn't have the right inputs for it, so getting something with HDMI made sense. We picked one up on eBay used.

    The new controller doesn't add anything; they should have skipped it. It's also frustrating that original Wii games run in a separate emulation layer instead of being presented as regular games.

    What probably killed it was that not enough people saw the need to upgrade for the better graphics, and the new controller wasn't compelling.

    Now my son in really into Super Mario World 3D, and now he wants a Switch to play the extra bonus feature.

    • We had one, the screen cracked and there is no way to get into many of the menus without it. It was a pretty bad design.

    • My family has the Wii-U as our only platform gaming system. We too just got it to upgrade out Wii. We mostly play our old Wii games on it,

      I think the biggest issue with the Wii-U was that it was a lackluster upgrade. The Wii I had it connected to our old CRT TV, then to a high def, where we got widescreen, but still the resolution was kinda low. After Nintendo stopped Mario Cart from being able to be played online. We switch to the Wii-U and is still using it.

      But the amount of console gaming we play, I

    • The new controller would have added something had the plans for allowing a second full controller (with screen) not been canceled. This would have allowed private functions in multi-player games, such as inventory screens, separate locations in the world, card games, or any type of game that leverages secrets known only to individual players.

      Given the strength of the hardware and the games developed for it, I dislike attaching the term "disaster" for something that sold 13 million units. The biggest disaste

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by sremick ( 91371 )

      For $10 you could've just gotten a Wii to HDMI adapter. :D I have one on mine.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by omibus ( 116064 )

      We love our WiiU, but about the only game we play is Breath of the Wild. We have others, but that is the game we always seem to go back to.

      • Xenoblade Chronicles X? If you haven't tried it then look it up, I spent many many hours on that game on the Wii U.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bjb ( 3050 )
      I think the best feature of the Wii U is that it lets you keep the GameCube and Wii generation viable in the HDMI era. The Wii support is out-of-the-box and trivial, but you have to do some relatively simple software/procedure hacks to get the GameCube emulation (plus an SD card to hold the ISO images).

      Not as powerful as the Switch, but I'm happy that at least I don't have to deal with HDMI upscalers of varying quality to get my old GameCube and Wii software working on a modern TV.

  • How is this new? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NateFromMich ( 6359610 ) on Friday May 07, 2021 @11:45AM (#61359196)
    Nintendo has been reselling the same games for decades now. I guess as long as people keep buying the same things over and over from them, they'll be fine.

    • Nintendo has been tweaking and improving the games for prior consoles. They've been re-using the same IP but until more recently the games themselves have been unique, or at the very least purpose made / with new content. What's new here is the biggest money makers are literal copies of previous games.

      Best selling game on Wii:
      1. Wii Fit - A special purpose game.
      2. Mario Kart Wii - A new game based on previous IP but with new graphics and new assets.

      Best selling game on Wii U:
      1. Mario Kart 8 - A new game bas

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tepples ( 727027 )

        Their copy here was so brazen that they literally left the U in the title.

        Any more brazen than Super Mario 64 DS?

      • New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe for Switch (the actual title) is a literal re-release of the two U titles. Their copy here was so brazen that they literally left the U in the title.

        You're.... mad that they were clear in the title exactly which game it is?

      • I was with you up until you started saying a lot of factually incorrect things about New Super Mario Bros. U.

        1) New Super Mario Bros U is not a remaster: it's a brand new game. New worlds. New levels. The whole shebang. Despite the similar names, it is not a remaster of New Super Mario Bros., nor is it a remaster of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, which is a different game entirely. I know, it's confusing. Nintendo really dropped the ball on naming things for that entire console generation. Just so we're on the

  • We must shut this story down. No one can know that backwards compatibility can be a good thing for users and developers alike. The entire world is at stake if this gets out.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Guspaz ( 556486 )

      The Switch doesn't have any backwards compatibility. These games are being ported, sometimes with some extra content.

  • A bomb? Or a prototype? (Score:3)

    by TheCowSaysMoo ( 4915561 ) on Friday May 07, 2021 @01:55PM (#61359790)

    The 2012 successor to the popular Wii (remember swinging that controller?) bombed

    It may have bombed in terms of units sold, but it was a gold mine if you change your perspective to view it as an early prototype for the Switch.

    The Wii U combined the controller and the screen. The Switch uses a combined controller and screen.
    The Wii U could be quickly connected/disconnected with the TV using a cradle. The Switch can be quickly connected/disconnected with the TV using a cradle.
    The Wii U cradle also charged the device. The Switch cradle also charges the device.
    The Wii U required you to stay within range of the console. The Switch added the console to the controller/screen so range is not a factor.
    The Wii U controller/screen device was single-player. The Switch added removable controllers to make the device multi-player (controllers from two Switches = 4 players)

    Nintendo did what great companies do: they kept the best of a "failed" product, pushed the boundaries for what is "normal" even further, and created an innovation that directly aligns with the gameplay of their target audience. You can now carry around an entire console, two controllers, dozen+ games, power cord, and TV connection cord in a case that is slightly bigger than three original GameBoys lined up side-by-side.

    With the Switch, Nintendo is putting on a clinic about how to turn prior failure into fortune as it repurposes games from the disastrous Wii U and tries selling them again on its newer hit device.

    Not quite. With the Switch, Nintendo is putting on a clinic about how to turn prior failure into fortune as it learned valuable lessons from the disastrous Wii U and turned a console gimmick into a console innovation.

    If the Switch was just another gimmick console, repurposing games from the Wii U would mean absolutely nothing.

    • Switch wasn't a console innovation. It was just a marketing spin. It's literally a rebranded NVIDIA Shield handheld that can be hooked to the TV and has a crap version of the Wii Remote. There's a reason Nintendo's current CEO came from Marketing.

  • Don't forget the other feature the Wii U boasted: You could tell it all your streaming services and live TV access and it helped you find stuff. Other than homebrew DVRs (which I don't think had pay streaming service support), this was pretty groundbreaking. You could have a single place to store and track all the shows that you liked to watch, without having to start up a third-party app, and just play them (it'd launch the app, but you didn't have to navigate inside the third-party app).

    But we found tha

  • It's interesting how every other console maker is called greedy when they re-release games for the next-gen console but when Nintendo does it, they've unleashed a "secret weapon" and they're "putting on a clinic". I know Slashdot has a soft spot for Nintendo and this post is going to be modded to oblivion, but I feel the need to call out double standards when I see them.

  • "Nintendo's Disastrous Wii U"

    Says who? The wii-u is the console my son wanted a bunch of years ago so we bought one and it has been great. Its a console. Its got fun games HDMI, does the job as a console for fun family gaming. Marioland, mairocart, rainman legends, new remix pack, wii-u emulator built in, smash bros, bunch of different lego games... We still use it all the time.

    The switch seems more like for people who like cell phones and watching things on tiny screens. No thanks.

  • They and Hulu fell out a few years ago, but if 2-channel sound is acceptable it is the best for Netflix. The Nvidia Shield I bought to replace it simply hasn't, in part because either Nvidia or/and Netflix decided to keep the annoying "start the movie" feature whenever you select a title simply to get more information. That doesn't happen on the Wii U, as the application there honors the users' settings.

    Crunchyroll is mostly stereo, so sound quality is the same as the Shield.

    Haven't looked lately, but wit

  • I think the most important differentiating factor is something people usually fail to mention: outer design. When I look at the switch, it’s colorful and sleek in the way it’s designed. The way it looks fits into the way I want my surroundings to look like a 21st-century young adult. However, when I look at the Wii U I am reminded of those kiddy alphabet learning tablets for education [ilmibbook.com]we all had as a kid. It’s bulky and obtrusive. The screen is completely surrounded, which is antithetical t
  • Nintendo porting Wii U games to Switch was good for business but it's a slap in the face for everyone who bought the Wii U in the first place. First of all because every Nintendo console had its own library of exclusives that you couldn't get even in another Nintendo console for years. Wii U is the first case of a Nintendo console that had almost its entire library migrated to its successor. And on top of that if you bought the Wii U not only you got little to no actual exclusives but you also have lots of

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