Welcome everyone to a new blog and here we'll get to know why Nintendo is famous and successful?
As, The Wii was Nintendo's best-selling home console of all time and of course its successor launched with impossibly high expectations. Despite having a number of excellent Nintendo games, the Wii U was a failure. This isn't a post-mortem on the Wii U. It's a look at why the Switch is so popular. I wonder if it all comes down to marketing.
Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aimé didn't give a simple "yes" to that question in a recent interview, but he definitely implied it.
There are a number of important things we have been able to do with Nintendo Switch. We have made clear the positioning of the product. Why buy this device? You can play this content anywhere, anytime with anyone. Let me know what the Wii U proposition was. We weren't as clear as we could have been.
A man has a point. The Star didn't dig deeper into Reggie's response, but it prompted me to revisit some of the Wii U's marketing, beginning with the confusing reveal at E3. The first Wii U trailer? You can't watch this and tell me the Wii U was more than a controller.
I noticed that the word "upgrade" was used multiple times in the Wii U TV commercials. Kids try to convince their parents that it's time to upgrade to the Wii U. The $299 price was usually followed by this. What did many think of them as an accessory? It was really bad. Nintendo's narrative wasn't helped by the Wii U's base design being similar to the original Wii form factor and still using Wiimotes.
The word upgrade means literally improving equipment or machinery by adding or replacing components. You would forgive Nintendo fans if they didn't understand that the Wii U was a completely new product. The Nintendo 64 was upgraded by installing the RAM expansion pak. The 32X expansion gave you an upgrade to your Genesis. It was a mistake and regretted it.
The switch came out of the gate with a focus on being new. It looked very different. By the time the initial trailer was released, the marketing message was perfect. A player enjoying Breath of the Wild on the couch looked familiar, but the "a-ha!" The moment took hold as he took apart the controller, snapped two attachment onto a tablets, and transferred the game to portable mode.
Not 6 feet away from your console base like the Wii U, but truly portable as the trailer later demonstrated. Park, rooftop, stadium, taxi. We take this for granted now, but that initial revelation was thrilling.
Since then, Nintendo has remained glued to that simple, core message Reggie mentions in the interview, that with the Switch "you can play this great content, anywhere, anytime with anyone." Crucially, Nintendo is showing you, not telling you, what the Switch is all about.
In advertising, repetition is key -- as long as your message is strong to begin with.
Granted, Nintendo initially seemed fixated on framing the Switch as a home console with the bonus of portability, likely because they didn't want to cannibalize 3DS sales. I still believe the company should have adopted a "portable first, home console second" approach, but what matters is that the Switch gives its players the freedom to decide that for themselves.
And now I take my leave and if you made it to the end then go play as you learnt something new.
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