Nintendo Explains Why the Wii U Failed

While the Wii U has experienced strong, if not spectacular, sales figures over the last eighteen months, its early years are universally recognised as disastrous. Now, in a candid conversation with Polygon, the Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime has confirmed what many other people have speculated regarding the initial failure of the current-gen console: it didn’t have the games.

Speaking during E3, Fils-Aime told Polygon, “This industry is all about content. I can map out why the Wii took off at launch, it had two killer pieces at launch: Twilight Princess, Wii Sports. Look at our DS business. Our DS business was OK, but it was the launch of DS Lite, the launch of Nintendogs, the launch of the first New Super Mario Bros. where that system sort of dramatically took off.”

“So what happened with Wii U?” he said. “Once the software came that showcased the capabilities of the system, guess what happened? The hardware took off.”

“I think it began holiday of 2013 as we prepped those launches that gave us some momentum,” Fils-Aime added. “Then Mario Kart 8 hit, then it was Smash. I think it really was holiday of ’13, when we started to get the momentum.”

A cursory glance at the global sales figures of the console, from launch to present, confirms Fils-Aime’s assessment:

This lines up with a statement Nintendo President Shigeru Miyamoto made in 2013, admitting that the company spent too much time developing innovative hardware and not enough time producing games for it. “We’re really focused on delivering content that takes advantage of that GamePad interaction and makes that second screen something that’s very meaningful and so that’s where we need to put our focus,” Miyamoto said.

Thank you Polygon for providing us with this information.