The Wii U wasn't as good as the GameCube, or the Wii, or the SNES, or the N64.
That depends on how you think of things.
Based on sales and power of the consoles the WiiU was not that good. But based on gameplay innovation the WiiU was up there with the best, certainly better than other Nintendo consoles.
I do believe Nintendo is taking a leaf out of the Apple book. By not doing things first but by trying to do them the best. The WiiU is the most innovative console to come out in it's generation. That was the WiiU's aim. Innovation to get the hardcore gamers. That failed because of many other factors. But the innovation is still there.
Secondly Apple is well known to have better 2nd generation hardware. For example, the S versions of iPhone as known to be superior. The NX will basically be a 3DS, S model. With a few features coming from the WiiU. This is not saying the WiiU was bad. The WiiU was not bad. The WiiU in the long run (partially because of Nintendo's mistakes and partially because of consumer trends) was not what many of Nintendo's customers wanted. The 3DS was screwed up early on too but it eventually sold very well because it was what the customers want. Nintendo customers overall would prefer to play lower res games on the go, then UHD games tethered to their television at home. A Wii3, whatever Nintendo called it would have failed again, not because of console quality. The Wii3 would have been amazing, but it's just not what the customers want. In business you always try to make what your customers want.
The NX (based on the rumours) is exactly what the customers want. It's also what the overall tech market is trending towards. More portable devices and less tethered to one spot devices.
- Notebook computers outsell towers and all in one computers.
- Smart phones outsell Notebook computers still.
- The decicated tablet market (think iPad) is being cannibalised by these new oversized phones being used as a tablet first and phone secondary. This proves that people don't want multiple devices on their person when they travel every day.
- Even the desktop OSes by MS and Apple are looking more and more like their Windows Mobile and iOS counterpart OSes every day.
The writing is on the wall for all to see. Sure there is a place for UHD gaming tethered to your television. Sony is betting their bank on it. The good (for Sony) part is they can have their gaming division as a loss leader for a while and have the rest of their business pick up the tab when this kind of tethered gaming has it's lul periods. Nintendo does not have this luxury. Sure Nintendo has a healthy bank account but it will not last for ever and would rather look to the future and keep that bank account healthy. Nintendo's move to primarily purely mobile with the NX is a good idea and just have the tethered to the television as the secondary option for the few who still want it.
All this relates to the WiiU because the WiiU taught Nintendo all of this. It also allowed Nintendo to test off television game play for the WiiU. Because the NX is basically off television gameplay to the extreme. The WiiU was not the failure that many people incorrectly think it was. Sure the WiiU did not sell as many units as Nintendo would have liked but it taught Nintendo many valuable lessons and paved the way to allow the NX to be a reality.
The hardcore the Wii did not cater for have also moved on, which is one of the reasons why the Wii U sold poorly.
These people you speak of were never going to be WiiU customers. Nintendo does not cater to them at all. The 3rd parties did at Nintendo's launch. But that failed simply because those games (like COD etc etc) are not the games that the Nintendo fan wants to play. They are not Nintendo console selling games. Nintendo fans like games where you're not playing as a realistic person in a (at least semi) realistic world. Nintendo fans like their weird and wacky Nintendo IPs.
Nintendo actually tried pretty hard to cater to the traditional hardcore gamer at the WiiU launch. This type of gamer has no interest in purchasing a WiiU and Nintendo fans have little interest in these kind of games. The Nintendo fans wanted the cutesy weird IP game that was a console seller. That never came at WiiU launch.
This is more a new phenomenon as in the past I remember games like Rogue Squadron 2 selling well at the Gamecube Launch. Also The N64 had Wave Race at it's launch. Times have changed and so have the gamer demographics.
The NX looks to rectify this at least in part with Breath of the Wild.
@Deus What you say is not correct. Nintendo at least initially at WiiU launch tried to cater for the hardcore gamer. That was their mistake as these people would never be Nintendo customers. Steve Jobs had it right in 1997 when he started to rebuild Apple.
"Start with your existing customer bases and build from there".
Nintendo has the dedicated gaming portable market and the weird non realistic IP fans as their customer base. The NX is Nintendo trying to take this into account where as the WIiU at launch did not.
In the 5th Generation, the N64 was blown out the water by Sony's Playstation in sales terms, 33 million to 103 million.This happened because despite having some of the greatest games of all time with Zelda and Mario on that console, their decision to use cartridges made the games extremely expensive. It also drove away 3rd party developers because of the more difficult format.
What drove the developers away from the N64 was not the difficulty of N64 development, it was the licencing and other fees Nintendo put of 3rd party developers to develop for the N64. Nintendo made it a red tape and expense nightmare to develop for the N64. This made it not financial sense to develop for the N64.
One thing I will never forgive the Wii U for though is what happened with the Virtual Console. I for the life of me will never understand what held it back so much and led to such a huge gutting of the Wii's library. It didn't contribute to the Wii U's commercial failure at all most likely, but coming off of what the Wii gave us, it left a bad taste in my mouth. I really hope the NX learns from this.
Your fears should be relieved with the NX. The Wiiware and Wii VC were not hosted on Nintendo servers. That's why a lot of the content there was pulled. On the WiiU, all the eShop and VC content is on Nintendo servers so it's safe and can't be pulled by 3rd parties discontinuing their hosting and online services. All the content from the WiiU eShop and VC should be there ready for the NX.
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Nintendo is never remembered for their hardware (failures aside). They are remembered for their great games. So which WiiU games will be remembered in decades to come as great games? Basically anything not too niche and relatively popular, not so many to be honest.
Xenoblade Chronicles X
Super Mario 3D Worlds
Affordable Space Adventures
Bayonetta 1&2
Hyrule Warriors
That's about it. Some of the rest like Captain Toad and Tokyo Mirage Sessions are great games but too niche to be remembered. In the grand scheme of things there will only be a few WiiU games remembered. Unlike other past Nintendo consoles with a lot more games remembered.
