

Nintendo Confirms Wii U Has Flopped, Slashes Sales Forecast By ~70% - bane
http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/17/wii-u-not-selling/

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Pxtl
Nobody wanted the etch-a-sketch screen. It shouldn't have been a core feature
of the device. I get why they liked the idea - it unified the 3DS and U
interfaces into a single common set of controls/screens.

But honestly, the Wii was such a smash hit, they probably would've been fine
to just provide an HD refresh of it. Stick on a few more buttons so it's
better for cross-platform gaming and make rechargeable controllers standard,
stuff like that. The Wii was a solid console with a few flaws. Instead of
"hey, there's a new HD Wii" the reaction was "Nintendo released this weird
freaking tablet Wii thing - is it a new console or a peripheral? What?

Their experiments with the etch-a-sketch controller would've been better
handled with 3DS integration - provide the etch-a-sketch as an optional
alternative to the 3DS-as-controller. Normally optional peripherals are a
dead-end but wireless 3DS integration wouldn't be as cumbersome as previous
generations where you had to buy a special dedicated piece of hardware for the
purpose (at the very least a special cable for GBA/GC integration).

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girvo
Culturally, Nintendo _hates_ cross-platform gaming, or used to anyway. Things
like the U screen are part of various ploys to force developers to take
advantage of Nintendos unique features (like dual screens on the DS, and the
motion control on the Wii). Not all of them have worked...

