Iwata on the state of Wii U, issues communicating GamePad’s value
Posted on January 29, 2014 by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Podcast Stories, Wii U
Satoru Iwata’s comments on the state of Wii U coming from Nintendo’s investor briefing are now available. You can find them below.
As a platform in its second year, Wii U is currently in a very difficult position. I would like to begin with what we are going to do with Wii U.
Obviously, under the current situation where the company has to report an operating loss, simply executing a price reduction as a way to defuse the situation is not an option. In the short-term, Nintendo will focus on thoroughly enriching the value of the most significant feature of Wii U, the Wii U GamePad.
Unfortunately, as the current situation of Wii U shows, we have not been able to fully communicate the value of the GamePad. We also realize that we have not been successful in answering consumers’ questions such as, “What is the difference between Wii U and the previous platform, Wii, and what is the benefit of upgrading it?” By looking at the current sales situation, I am aware that this is due to our lack of effort. What’s even worse is that there even appear to be not a small number of consumers who think the GamePad is one of the accessories for the previous platform, Wii.
It is more challenging to convey the appeal of the GamePad to consumers who do not engage with video games that often since they do not actively gather information about video games. Therefore, we intend to take on this challenge, and I would like to have this solved before the year-end sales season.In order to do this, it is obvious that
Our top priority task this year is to offer software titles that are made possible because of the GamePad.
We have managed to offer several of such software titles for occasions when many people gather in one place to play, but we have not been able to offer a decisive software title that enriches the user’s gameplay experience when playing alone with the GamePad. This will be one of the top priorities of Mr. Miyamoto’s software development department this year.
