Nintendo tries to right the ship by porting smartphone apps to Wii U
Like me, you probably saw lots of Wii U’s sitting on shelves this last holiday season. Not a good sign for a console that had the Christmas season to itself as the only next-gen gaming console on the market, and the results the company announced in April confirmed what many (including myself) expected: the Wii U is underperforming.
So what is Nintendo planning to do about it? According to a report in the Japan Times, the company is hoping to goose interest in the console by ramping up the number of games on the platform by giving mobile app developers conversion tools for their games.
The game console and software maker has offered professional-use conversion software to application developers so they can produce smartphone games that can be played on Wii U, a struggling home video game console that helped widen the firm’s operating loss in fiscal 2012. Nintendo hopes smartphone software will help spur console sales, which will in turn lead to an increase in popular game titles for them, the sources said.
I think this move makes sense, but I think the company has a bigger problem on its hands, namely, well, the name. Nintendo President Iwata indicated last month at the same time they released their results was they believed many consumers were confused by the Wii U brand, as many thought the name referred to a peripheral for the original Wii. Not surprising and perhaps a sign the company was being a little too clever with the U, rather than applying a number convention (like Wii 2 or similar).
Overall, the name problem and a lack of interest among consumers are increasingly worrying signs for a console maker who is now looking at Microsoft and Sony console releases over the next year, not to mention competition from tablets. The name problem isn’t going away and can only be remedied by serious market education (read advertising dollars), and there’s no guarantee it will help.
Bottom line: While I like the idea of getting popular games onto the platform, I worry it may be too little, too late.
