Topic: Nintendo's Wii U Launch Strategy - Keep Consumers In The Dark

[azeke]

They had me at "Nintendo."

Same here. Patcher's right for once, Nintendo could release a card board box with "Nintendo" written on it and i'd probably buy it.

Pachter (just like many others) is being dismissive here, when he says "those braindead nintendo zombies will eat up everything".

It's a comfortable thing to say that doesn't require any actual thought or analysis from posters and, disappointingly, is accepted as a genuine answer.

I just read neogaf's thread about vita bombing in japan and more than a few people said: "well duh! Nintendo always wins in handhelds".

No, you doofuses. It took quite a lot of effort to get there and it was nothing but an automatic win.

I hate notion that nintendo fans are dumb religious zealots that are there on default and winning their attention and money is easy.

I know what i need to know. I'm buying Wii U for NSMB U. And i know that this game is at launch.

Not because i'm some kind of dumb moron who jumps at everything with Nintendo brand on it, but because i FREAKING LOVE NSMB Wii game and had blast playing it with my friends. Why the hell am i looked down and called a moron now?

I buy my consoles for games.

I'm buying Wii U for Mario. For Bayonetta, Scribblenauts and Rayman.

Not because it has Nintendo slapped on it.

As a consumer i was informed quite well about the most important features of the console:

Nintendo Land -- skip
Mario -- buy
Bayonetta -- wait
Rayman -- buy when it comes (dammit Ubisoft)

[BlackNMild2k1]

They had me at "Nintendo."

Me too, can't lie. No matter what happens, Nintendo 1st party titles will always be worth it, so getting one is a no brainer. If the 3rd party support isn't there again this time around, I still don't know for sure I'd pick up another console. Besides the fact that PS4 and Next-NextBox are around the corner so it wouldn't be wise to purchase PS360, I just don't know if the newer systems are worth it considering I don't play games like I used to.

That's exactly why I'm content with the fact that they had me at "nintendo"

can I co-sign this as if I said it myself?

[NWR_insanolord]

I think on some level there's envy for the security Nintendo has due to its many die-hard fans. Nothing Nintendo could release today could possibly flop as badly as the Vita has, because they have enough of a base to keep them above that. Sony and Microsoft have fanboys, but they'd be a lot quicker to jump ship as we saw from the PS2 to the PS3.

This is of course the kind of comparison I'd make with the avatar I have, but in this way Nintendo is a lot like Notre Dame football. As bad off as they were for a while, they have legions of very loyal fans who will get them through the rough patches and forces the media to cover them even when they might not want to. This also tends to rub people who aren't as big of fans the wrong way, and causes a backlash in some circles, which can cause the fans to become overly defensive sometimes, which is often exploited by less reputable elements of the media who take unnecessary shots at them to stir up **** and get attention.

[UncleBob]

Box?  Pshaw.

Only yuppies need a whole box.

[Nemo]

I feel like there were things about the GameCube or the Wii that I didn't know about on launch day. And I had a lot of fun figuring them out when I got the system. It's part of the magic of getting a new system. I don't recall if I didn't know these things because Nintendo didn't share them or if I just didn't look for the info ahead of time, but it wasn't a big deal.

In any case, this time around, I'm unsure if I want one right away, so I'll just wait and let other people figure it out. Later on, if I want one, I'll get one.

It's not really a problem.

[Ceric]

Nintendo fans expect games with attention to details and that are interesting in their architypes.  Because we have such a strong first party we come off as critical of 3rd parties and Nintendo itself.  We've seen what they can do and nothing but there best will impress.

[King of Twitch]

Well if they told you up front what they believed and what they stood for, no one would ever vo...ohh never mind.

[Ian Sane]

Sony and MS rely so much on third party support that they don't really have the same kind of fanbase Nintendo has and Sega had.  They're also not videogame companies but rather unrelated companies that expanded into gaming.

The attitude that Nintendo could **** in a box and people would buy it doesn't seem that far off.  There are times when Nintendo does some unbelievably dumb thing that doesn't benefit Nintendo customers or even Nintendo themselves and there will be quite a lot of Nintendo fans that will trip over themselves to defend it.  "How dare anything bad be said about almighty Nintendo!"

It isn't a Nintendo-fan specific thing.  Lots of dedicated fanbases demonstrate this.  I think it's more the human nature to not be wrong.  Criticism towards Nintendo is a subtle suggestion that perhaps one's decision to be a Nintendo fan is not a good decision and THAT makes someone defensive.  Any time Nintendo does something dumb or takes advantage of their customers it's embarrassing to a Nintendo fan.  "How can you like a company that does this?"  Different fans handle it different ways.  Some will admit to being fans but state that they don't like this specific thing.  Some will just act like Nintendo never does anything wrong.  I see both types of fans on this site and on pretty much any videogame site.  And it isn't just Nintendo fans.  You see this sort of thing from fans of Apple, WWE, Star Wars,  pretty much any sports team, etc.

Of course, sometimes it is just a matter of opinion and something may seem undefendable to you but not to someone else.

[Ceric]

...
Of course, sometimes it is just a matter of opinion and something may seem undefendable to you but not to someone else.

Like being a Browns fan.

[UncleBob]

Some will admit to being fans but state that they don't like this specific thing.

Errr... what's wrong with this?

[EasyCure]

They had me at "Nintendo."

Me too, can't lie. No matter what happens, Nintendo 1st party titles will always be worth it, so getting one is a no brainer. If the 3rd party support isn't there again this time around, I still don't know for sure I'd pick up another console. Besides the fact that PS4 and Next-NextBox are around the corner so it wouldn't be wise to purchase PS360, I just don't know if the newer systems are worth it considering I don't play games like I used to.

That's exactly why I'm content with the fact that they had me at "nintendo"

can I co-sign this as if I said it myself?

I'll make an exception for you.

I feel like there were things about the GameCube ... that I didn't know about on launch day

Like? I'm just curious, it's not like it has any extra bells & whistles the way the Wii or Wii U had/has. I knew it was gonna be Ninty's first CD based console, 4 controller ports and specs that i didn't understand, and a handle.

[Nemo]

Like?

I remember thinking the menu was really cool. It was cube based. That was a neat surprise (to me).

And the internal clock affected Rogue Squadron. That was a surprise (to me) as well. Maybe these were things people knew about... but being a fan, I didn't need to justify a purchase of a Nintendo console.

It was also later revealed that you could connect the GBA player to it. They didn't announce that specific possible add-on before launch day (I don't think).

The GBA/GameCube connectivity was something that was talked about but not available on day one, I think?

My point is that getting new hardware and playing around with it is really fun. I didn't really care if they told me about this stuff or not.

So, those were things that I, MYSELF, didn't know all about. Maybe YOU knew everything about it at launch, which is fine, too. But my lack of knowledge didn't decrease my enjoyment. In fact, quite the opposite. I enjoyed discovering little new things about the system.

That's my own personal opinion on how to look at buying a console on day one. But everyone's different, and if one needs to know all the facts and see the whole experience before buying it, I think one should wait.

[Mop it up]

I think Nintendo have covered all of the important features. If you need to know every little detail about a system before you make a decision to buy it, don't buy systems at launch. You'll never know everything about it until people actually get their hands on one.

[EasyCure]

Like?

I remember thinking the menu was really cool. It was cube based. That was a neat surprise (to me).

And the internal clock affected Rogue Squadron. That was a surprise (to me) as well. Maybe these were things people knew about... but being a fan, I didn't need to justify a purchase of a Nintendo console.

It was also later revealed that you could connect the GBA player to it. They didn't announce that specific possible add-on before launch day (I don't think).

The GBA/GameCube connectivity was something that was talked about but not available on day one, I think?

My point is that getting new hardware and playing around with it is really fun. I didn't really care if they told me about this stuff or not.

So, those were things that I, MYSELF, didn't know all about. Maybe YOU knew everything about it at launch, which is fine, too. But my lack of knowledge didn't decrease my enjoyment. In fact, quite the opposite. I enjoyed discovering little new things about the system.

That's my own personal opinion on how to look at buying a console on day one. But everyone's different, and if one needs to know all the facts and see the whole experience before buying it, I think one should wait.

Relax it wasn't an attack on you or anything, I just didn't think the GCN had anything spectacular out of the box that would be surprising. To this day I had no idea that the internal clock affected Rogue Squadron, since I never owned the game. The cube menu interface wasn't really a surprise to me but I was surprised to learn (after launch) that the start-up music would be different if you held down the A button. I believe it had other alternative boot-up  sounds if multiple controllers were plugged in but I never tried it.

With the Wii, and now Wii U, I could understand being surprised by things like Mii's and the integrated messaging system, or even simpler things like the system logging your play times for review. Wii had a lot of those little extras, whereas GCN didn't; it was just a cube to play games on

Thanks for answering my question though.

[stevey]

Nintendo doesn't have a choice.

The reason why we are in the dark is probably because Nintendo is announcing the system features when they finish coding them, at the very last minute.

[Razorkid]

I think this strategy is brilliant.

Typically, what does other companies do? They announce their system and hype the crap outta of it for months to years. Meanwhile, by the time the system is near launch, expectations are either waaay too unreaslistically high or people are just tired of the hype and just want the system to arrive already because we already know everything there is to know about it.

I love Nintendo's approach. Let folks know the basic premise up front and then release info more and more as launch approaches. Other companies lead their system announcements with hardware specs and graphical tech demos, Nintendo leads their hardware announcements with features and the new way you're gonna have fun with their machine. I also much prefer getting announcements of games only 3-6months in advance vs 12-18 months like other companies.

I think Nintendo intentionally don't release tech specs because they want people to focus on the unique features of the system and not have people disparage it for not being on par with the highest end pc currently available (which is exactly what people will do). This way they control the message and when they do release information about the system, you can guarantee it will be interesting and everyone will be paying attention.  Nintendo rarely releases new info on systems and features until they are usually 100% confident in them and I appreciate that more than hearing about pie-in-the-sky promises that never materialize.

With Nintendo news, like a great game, no one remembers how long it takes to release, just if its good or not.