At the time of its release, the manner on how it they’d marketed that was confusing as they showcased the Wii U gamepad as if its a portable console (its not) since its rather the main controller for the Wii U console. I was in high school when the console was first revealed, my reaction to that was “WTF?” as I thought the gamepad was portable, as the ads often flex that it can be (or the way they showed it came off as that).
Usually the thing that’s mentioned as a big marketing mistake is the name.
If you were already looking into it you’d probably know it was a new console. But to casual gaming enthusiasts (and those were a huge part of the wii/DS success), or to people that just didn’t follow Nintendo news closely, it really wasn’t clear.
Some believed “Wii U” was just a new attachment for a wii, or just a new wii edition, rather than an actual different console with about halfway gen7-8 capabilities.
They did the exact same mistakes with the "3"DS and only survived a very rocky launch with a quick repricing and a lot more marketing. Wii U never really recovered.
Yeah, I was (and am) a pretty avid gamer and I didn’t know that it wasn’t just a tablet for the Wii until years later when it came up on some podcast where they were like “yeah, doesn’t help that everyone just thought it was a new accessory for the Wii”. A large number of other kids that I knew had Wiis. I never knew anyone who even mentioned the Wii U irl.
I’m also just now finding out that the 3DS apparently wasn’t just the newest DS model like the DS->DSi? lol
3DS was a new system and significantly more powerful than DS.
You can see it mostly on what 3D games on DS look like in comparison, they were generally very limited. Of course 3DS had a rather low resolution (though already higher than DS), but it could do a lot more. Roughly, imagine going from N64 to Gamecube or Wii visually.
3DS also had a few specific abilities, obviously stereoscopic 3D, but also an analog stick (of sort, but still making a huge difference), console to console passive communication (street pass), NFC reader, and motion sensing (surprisingly great for aiming, made shooting in Zelda games a breeze).
3DS actually had its own new model with the “new 3DS” (that name… they never learn).
This one was mostly the same but more convenient. A lot more stable 3D, especially if you’re combining it with motion which was basically impossible before, a second (rather shit) analog stick, a second pair of triggers. You could have these new inputs on a standard 3DS through an accessory, so they just integrated them.
New 3DS was also more powerful, but a game needed to be specifically made or updated for the n3DS to access that extra power. Very few games were updated, and even fewer were exclusive to new, only notable one probably being Xenoblade Chronicles.
The name is usually what people blame, but if that’s the case why did they succeed with NES being followed up by SNES? Or Game Boy followed by Game Boy Color and then Game Boy Advance?
Hard to fault them for following a pattern that had worked great for them in the past.
To me Super Nintendo sounds like a super version of the Nintendo, and Super is the first word.
Game Boy Color implies it is a Gemeboy with a color screen.
Game Boy Advance sounds like an advanced version of the Game Boy.
Wii U tells you nothing. It starts with Wii and then adds the nonsensical letter U, that’s all the information the name conveys.
Basically way larger audience. The big thing in gaming around 2005-ish is that everyone is a potential gamer, including people who mostly don’t care about or are not used to specific console releases.
Also I’d argue a “Super” is a clearer mark of upgrade than a single, very random letter or number (that is specifically not used like a version number like “GameMachine 4” but instead a weird portmanteau).
Also counterpoint : Nintendo of America used a lot of marketing to try and make people stop calling consoles “a Nintendo”, and part of this was the lack of distinction between NES and SNES (the other part was confusion with the competition).