Nintendo CEO Says He Should Have Marketed the Wii Differently

[teknoarcanist]

It's incredible to me that Nintendo can note that core gamers aren't buying the Wii...and draw the conclusion that, of all else, it was a marketing problem.

"We can't understand why we can't sell cats to these people who only like to buy dogs. We think maybe it was a failure on the part of our marketing department."

Why do companies propagandize themselves like this? Developers do it too. A game will be released, and some feature that is lacking in depth or polish will be widely, loudly, and universally panned -- and then you hear an interview with the head designer, and he says something about how people are probably not buying the game because the box-art is bad.

DO YOU NOT READ WORDS ABOUT YOURSELF WHEN PEOPLE WRITE THEM ON THE INTERNET?

(Do you...do you not know how?)

 

[Chris646]

Does this mean we'll see more funny or ironic ads from Nintendo in the same vein as the Kevin Butler PS3 spots? What would that even be like?

The ads would be Miyamoto walking on camera and telling us "Buy this, or face the wrath of Miyamoto."
Terrifying.

But in all seriousness, this should be an interesting development.

 

[funkzillabot]

No. Other than the name, which just stupid, the Wii's marketing plan was fine. The problem was, you kept ignoring your main audience. The people who stuck by you during the lean years. Hi, remember us? THAT's where the mistake was made. Now, look. I can't believe [Nintendo] you didn't see this coming? WE all did.

I don't mean to be gross -- but I'm gonna. In order for you to understand just how bad your situation currently is [Nintendo]. *Ahem* Your next game console and Zelda title, had better be --- "like a smokin' hot, well endowed 18 year old virgin, with her ass on fire" --- I am deadly fucking seriously. I have better see review scores of 10's across the board. I better be able to download every single 1st and 3rd party back catalog of games ever made. Dating back to the "Fami-com" (NES). SuperNES, N64, Game Cube, Gameboy, Color Gameboy, Gamboy Advance, DS, DSi, 3DS. And it had all better be connect using the internet and not to tied to the damn game unit. We don't care about "there are contracts" and "we can't get" --- that is your freaking problem, just make it happen.

Now that the lesson has been learned it's time to deliver the goods. Or, as we used to say, "Put up or shut up"! I don't think I could make my point any clearer. Do you?

 

[Idocreating]

This is probably the cause for a lot of Nintendo's mistakes over the past few years.

Especially, I suspect, their online strategy. They're practically non-existant and a total pain in the butt compared to Xbox Live, PSN or PC Gaming.

 

[the_green_dragon]

The software for Wii mostly sucks. They have to make dumbbed down versions for the Wii. 2 examples are Transformers (Xbox and PS got a 3rd person shooter, Wii got a on rails point and shoot) and Overlord (didn't play the Wii verson but it said Wii exclusive which pretty means crappier graphics and less stuff)

I only have a few games for Wii and they are all basically party games for when female friends come over.

Everything else is Xbox.