5 Ways Nintendo Can Reverse the Wii U’s Misfortunes

This is how Nintendo can become relevant in the home console space again.

With Microsoft ditching their Kinect in an attempt to raise sales numbers it got me thinking about what Nintendo could do to reverse the fortunes of their problem child, the Wii U. These are some of the ideas I came up with, they are listed in order from least crazy to intensely radical. 

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5. Build a real online community

Nintendo, it’s 2014. The time has come to recognize that the whole world is online. Why do you cling to the idea of hard-to-use “Friend Codes”? Looking at Microsoft as the example here, Xbox Live has been a huge success, in fact it’s the reason they’re relevant as a company in the video game industry. They recognized the future of gaming was going to be online and took advantage of it early on. Take a page from their playbook and revamp your console’s online infrastructure.

Look at Blizzard, they’ve been ingenious with their Battle.net system, every time I log on to any Blizzard game I can see what all of my friends are playing, no matter which game they’re logged into. It’d be great if Nintendo adopted this type of system and let gamers simply share our online screen names without the hassle of a Friend Code.

Gamers expect to be able to engage in party chat across multiple games and to be able to talk to each other during their racing sessions in Mario Kart 8. Take the reigns off and let gamers get out there and talk to their friends, I understand you’re trying to protect children while they’re online, but you’re dampening every one else’s experience to do so. 

4. Steal PlayStation Plus

Nintendo has what is arguably the best back catalogue of games in the entire games industry. Could you imagine a Playstation Plus-style ecosystem where Wii U owners got four free games every month? Nintendo wouldn’t even have to give away current gen games to make gamers happy, they could spend a year giving away NES games and no one would have anything to complain about.

Now that’s the most stingy way they could possibly handle this type of scenario, but just imagine getting Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda, Advanced Wars and New Super Mario Bros. U in a single month. That’d be an amazing value, that would make owning the system worth it.

Speaking from experience, I was in love with my Xbox 360 last generation. I owned a PlayStation 3 but I hardly ever played it, one month they released a game for free on PlayStation Plus that I wanted, but it was a $50 game, so instead of buying the game outright I just signed up for Playstation Plus. Once I signed up, I slowly found myself playing more and more on my PS3. Eventually it overtook my 360 as my console of choice, so much so that I sold my 360 and made the jump to the PS4 instead of the Xbox One when they came out.

If PS+ can convince me, a gamer with a Gamerscore of over 35,000 points to jump ship, Nintendo could earn a lot of goodwill with a similar program. While the Nintendo Club is a good step in the right direction, it takes far too long to accrue points and the games you get as a reward are not equal to the amount you have to spend to earn them.

For example, Super Metroid is 200 coins on Club Nintendo right now. Buying a Wii U console only nets you 160 coins, so you’re telling me the purchase of a $300 console doesn’t net me a $7 game? From a consumer standpoint it seems very lopsided, I’d love to see them take Club Nintendo a step further and really give gamers a great value for their money.  

3. Price cut

Let’s face it, the Wii U isn’t that much cheaper than its competition now. Why pay $300 for a graphically inferior console when for an extra $100 you can have a PS4, or come June 9, an Xbox One? If the Wii U just dropped its price by $50 it’d be a serious contender in the home console space, especially as a second console.

While the ‘core’ gamer wouldn’t necessarily forgo owning an Xbox One or a PS4 to own a Wii U, they would seriously consider purchasing one as a supplemental console just to play Nintendo exclusives at that price range. Nintendo may have to eat some of the cost on lowering the price, but most companies sell at a loss when it comes to hardware in the games industry.

Eventually they’d be able to recoup that money they’re losing with software sales and as the technology improves the console would only become cheaper to make, which means eventually they’d make back what they lost.

2. Hand IPs to third party developers

OK, this one’s pretty radical. What if Nintendo handed the reigns of their beloved franchises over to new developers? A report from N4G  stated that in 2012 Nintendo had $10.5 billion dollars in the bank, that’s Billion with a capital “B.” Imagine if Nintendo dipped into some of that cash and used it to either buy third party developers outright, like Sony, or pay them to make their next big game.

I would love to see Drinkbox Studios make a 2D, side scrolling Metroid or a Legend of Zelda title produced by From Software. The possibilities are nearly endless once you start to open the floodgates on this topic. If they had multiple studios working on different games simultaneously this would solve one of Nintendo’s biggest problems, which is the fact that they just don’t put out their big hitters often enough.

What would the games market look like if Nintendo annualized a franchise like Zelda, but just gave it to a new developer to make every year? The new blood working on Nintendo’s classic franchises would be just the shot in the arm that they need, breeding an incredible amount of originality from year to year all while giving gamers the titles they want to play.

1. Drop the Gamepad

The Gamepad is essentially what makes the Wii U the Wii U. This is what makes this such a radical idea… how much does the Gamepad really add to the user’s experience? The only game to use it to amazing effect is Rayman Legends, the rest of the time the Gamepad merely serves as a menu, map, or horn. Nintendo either needs to make games that really take advantage of the Gamepad in innovative ways or they need to drop it all together.

The major benefit from dropping the Gamepad would be manufacturing costs, which would in turn allow them to drop the price of their machine. How much better does $199 sound compared to $300 or even $250 for that matter? If they packaged the Wii U with their pro controller instead of the Gamepad it would allow them to make drastic price cuts that would put their console in a “no-brainer” range. 


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Author
Rocky Linderman
I’m a freelance camera assistant by trade, but I also love video games. I run a weekly podcast called Video Game Wundercast.