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For the past couple years, Nintendo has attempted to share its vision for Wii U. For many observers and fans, the publisher has struggled to articulate itself well, first in clarifying that this was an entirely new system, and then fully demonstrating its capabilities. Bit by bit, Nintendo's overall message has not only grown stronger, but become clearer, and while there's still much to explain, gamers now have a much better sense of why Nintendo is going down this two-screen path.
"With any new hardware from Nintendo that tends to be a significant innovation versus what's been done in the past, we have to learn how to best communicate that innovation to consumers," Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime told me at the recent Wii U preview/launch event. Earlier in the interview, Fils-Aime noted that the company wasn't even sure how to articulate the appeal of something like the 3DS's Street Pass. "It was really hard to put it into words, because it is so different and so novel. And yet when I talk to people, Street Pass is one of the things they love most. The quests, the surprise of finding a new Mii on your system."
Fils-Aime noted the entire process of describing a new system to consumers, particularly since Nintendo typically forges new, innovative paths, is a lengthy one that doesn't click into place all at once. "If you look at the early marketing activity for Nintendo DS, versus where we were six years later, it was very different," Fils-Aime noted. "We had to learn how to speak to the consumer in a way that they could understand about what was so fun about this two-screen experience. The same is true for Wii. As a marketing organization, we had to learn how to communicate the fun of a motion-controlled active play experience."
Nintendo's journey with the 3DS has also been well-documented. When the company first unveiled the new platform, its messaging heavily emphasized the glasses-free 3D feature of the system. Nintendo anticipated that aspect to gel with consumers, but that didn't turn out to be the case. The result is what you see today - more talk about games and more quiet releases of StreetPass-based content. The 3D is still there, Nintendo just doesn't mention it nearly as often as it used to.
In some ways, though the system hasn't even hit store shelves, the same is true for Wii U. "For the last year, we've had to learn how to communicate about Wii U," Fils-Aime said. Watching the company move from a GamePad-centric message to something more broad, incorporating discussions of TVii, asynchronous gameplay and Miiverse has truly been a revelation, but each iteration of that message, and each subsequent showing, seems to be refined. Clearly something is working - Wii U pre-orders are rapidly disappearing as retailers anticipate running out of hardware at launch.
Still, challenges remain. Though Fils-Aime told me online play is as common as air, and that Nintendo intended to “give you tons of that air,” the company has yet to truly shed light on that process, including the critical notion of Friend Codes – or whatever iteration of that concept will (or won’t) appear on Wii U.
And Nintendo recognizes some of those upcoming tasks already. “Miiverse has the same challenges. Our vision for this service is unlike anything that's ever been before it… People put it in, maybe, current terms of things that it's most analogous to, and it's not really what this is going to be. It's going to be a very rich, robust part of the experience,” Fils-Aime said, when I asked if current comparisons and assumptions about the service were appropriate to describe a service that hasn’t fully been articulated yet. “One of the things that we've found is that gamers want to talk about other gamers about the fun they have when they're playing games. And that's different from what you do on other social networks. We believe Miiverse will be a very compelling part of the Wii U proposition, just like Street Pass and the Street Pass Mii Plaza have become a very compelling part of the Nintendo 3DS proposition.”
And Nintendo’s job doesn’t simply end once Wii U arrives on store shelves. There’s plenty more to be said about the games coming to the system, and while we have a pretty good grasp of things like Nintendo Land, New Super Mario Bros. U or ZombiU, things get very murky beyond the initial five-month “launch window.” I asked Fils-Aime why his team has been avoiding that conversation, even though some consumers absolutely think long-term when it comes to evaluating whether a console is worth purchasing.
“This is a real double-edged sword, because there are other people who are complaining that [the launch window is too long],” Fils-Aime told me. “What we're trying to do is give the most complete picture of the games that are going to be available now, as well as over the next number of months. That's why we've focused on this launch window, through March 31.”
Yet knowing that some gamers wanted more information, Fils-Aime noted that that more unannounced Wii U games are in development, including some that will release “during the launch window that we haven’t announced yet.” Precisely when we’d learn more information about that software, and who is developing it, is unclear.
With less than two months until the system’s launch, Nintendo still has plenty to reveal about its new system. Just yesterday we learned Wii U will be region-locked, but we still need to learn more about system transfers, launch day software, online capabilities, Miiverse and plenty more. Nintendo may have clarified its vision, but Wii U is still a ways off from becoming a crystal clear product. Stay tuned to IGN as we learn more.
