Nintendo’s problem with the WiiU is all about branding

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Ben Cousins of DeNA pointed me to this Reddit thread about why the WiiU is struggling, written by someone who works in video games retail.

“Nintendo went out of their way to remove their name from the Wii and make it its own brand with its own line of products and accessories. Then they went and advertised their new console by only ever showing off the tablet controller and never the actual console. Look at all those pictures–the console is sitting in the background inconspicuously. And it does not help that it looks very similar to the original Wii. There was that anecdote of the Kotaku writer’s wife who, upon opening the WiiU box, asked why they would include another Wii with it. They basically doomed themselves with incredibly stupid and misguided advertising for their brand new console since people didn’t even know there was a new console.”

The full comment is worth reading, as it helps those of us in live in the video games bubble to understand better how normal people think about our products. If his diagnosis is accurate, it may go down as one of the most spectacular marketing misfires in history.

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