“I now regret that we didn’t tie up with someone outside the company to market the Wii,” said Satoru Iwata at a recent investor conference, speculating that the “fate of the Wii might have been different.”
“Now I am aware that we should not rely too much on ourselves,” he added. “You will see what I mean by this when we market the 3DS and the Wii in the future.”
[Reuters]
The Gremlin
Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 9:57 AMColor me confused. I always thought the Wii’s marketing was pure genius, heck, the Wii pretty much sold on marketing alone.
Yes so they sold a Wii to everybody and their brother (and mother) and now there is no one left to sell a Wii to. With a minimal software attachment rate, the Wii was doomed to hit the wall someday, but I thought they knew. It was a consequence of their marketing strategy.
Just as Microsoft and Sony, they were green with envy over the Wii strategy.
Aidan Dullard
Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 11:52 AMYeah, I thought the same. I mean, the advertising was so damn pervasive that even people who had never heard of gaming were buying Wiis as a fitness tool.
Dark_Templar
Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 10:00 AMAccording to this, Wii has a future…
Ben Shuker
Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 1:13 PMThe Wii is a lie
Random
Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 2:19 PMNintendo have clearly lost it. The Wii’s failure is due to poor marketing? The 3DS’s lacklustre sales are due to people ‘not understanding’ it? They’re making Wii2 because there’s no ‘surprises’ left on Wii?
They really can’t connect the dots there?
Unbelievable…
Adam
Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 3:00 PMFirst of all when did they say the Will failed? and second the only one of the things that they have actually said is the 3DS having lacklustre sales
James Pinnell
Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 2:22 PMNintendo took a lot from Apple (advertising the experience, not the product) and it worked pretty damn well, as the sales numbers show.
I have a lot of criticisms of Nintendo, but their marketing ability is definitely not one of them.
Lord Bob
Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 4:34 PMThis is probably my bias talking but i read it like this.
The Wii did fantastically well but it was held back by the picture nintendo drew of the family friendly kiddie console that also helps mum shed those unsightly inches (wii fit).
They’re saying they should have also brought in somebody to advertise it as a hardcore console as well and target people who would buy it as such.
That way maybe it would have had a better image with traditional gamers and driven sales and third party investment higher.
Anybody agree?
Simon
Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 7:02 PMWhat total arrogance. Have Nintendo already forgotten about the failure of their Gamecube? I hope their next console fails – bring them back to reality and start developing some decent games again.
Stephen Medway
Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 9:54 PMIt’s obvious what Nintendo are talking about when saying they regret ‘not tying up’.
They are talking about Lovefilm, Netflix, Hulu & all the film studios etc. The xbox has Live and Sony has it’s (broken) PlayStation network and Nintendo has…… A pathetic online experience.
Games Consoles are no longer about just games and Nintendo deeply regrets not having an online stratergy which includes third parties providing content.
The question is has the competition had too much of a head start? Is selling a home ‘games console’ which only plays games enough to cut it anymore?
From the big N’s regret I they think they know they’ve missed the boat. I just hope that the Wii2/Project Cafe doesn’t end up as their Dreamcast (which kicked ass and had some of the finest games ever released) but wasn’t a success – look what happened to Sega, the mighty can fall :-(