Yesterday we reported the departure of Nintendo’s long-time indie game manager Dan Adelman. One of the reasons for his departure was his many instances of going against the company’s message and sharing his harsher opinions a bit too openly. Now that he has left the company he is able to freely share though, and today he revealed his thoughts on the Wii U and how Nintendo has essentially failed the console with a few decisions.
When asked if he feels that Nintendo deserves the mess they are in with the Wii U Adelman responded, “Wii U is not selling as well as it deserves to. It has a lot to offer with great games you can’t get anywhere else. The value of the GamePad hasn’t been justified. But the name Wii U is abysmal. I think that cut sales in half right there.”
The Wii U currently sits at just under seven million sales worldwide, far lower than Nintendo projected at this point in the console’s lifecycle. In fact, the poor sales of the Wii U are largely responsible for Nintendo posting overall losses for the past couple of years, a rarity for the century old company.
Thinking back to the initial unveiling of the Wii U at E3 2011, many people, even those largely familiar with the gaming industry, came away from the presentation confused. Was the Wii U a brand new console? Was it a peripheral for the current Wii? Was it just a slightly upgraded Wii, allowing HD graphics? It took a few months before much of the gaming population had a good grasp on what exactly the Wii U was. For the general population, the group that propelled the Wii to its amazing success, the confusion still lingers. While a different name might not have cleared everything up, it certainly would have helped.
- This article was updated on March 8th, 2018
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