If exclusives sell consoles why did the Wii U flop?

The Wii U had some pretty big exclusives such as Bayonetta 2, Mario 3D World, Xenoblade X, Splatoon, and MK8 and yet it didn't even break 15 million. The Xbox One outsold and that consoles has zero exclusives.

But I thought you guys said exclusives sell consoles?

Because exclusives aren’t the end all be all. Also the whole messaging of what the Wii U was was a disaster and much of the general consumer base just didn’t really get it. It’s exclusives were some really great games that sold the system to the people who bought it but that obviously wasn’t enough. By the way saying that the Xbox One has “zero” exclusives is factually wrong.

The Wii U was poorly marketed. The average consumer wasn't able to differentiate it from the Wii. Most people thought the Wii U was just an add-on controller for the Wii.

On top of that, Nintendo never fully grasped their own concept of having a screen on a controller.

Continuous momentum is deciding factor. Wii U had too many droughts to sustain itself.

This is a very true factor too.

It started out bad right out of the flood gate because people were confused and the marketing didn't inform well enough that it was an entirely new console.

As far as games go, I think it's easy to say it now, looking back and say "wow, the Wii U has an assortment of gems in its library." But the truth is, during its time there were significant droughts. If you didn't have a Wii U then and you have it now, you'd probably have a good time with its library, but for its time it was just drought after drought.

Terrible terrible marketing.

Not enough exclusives. People only buy consoles for exclusives and nothing else.

@Pedro: So people buy X1 mostly for Sea of thieves and State of decay right ?

People buy an X1 to play Fifa, 2K, and CoD with their bros.

@Pedro: If you don't count media player/tv tuner, ui, controller, bc, etc which some prefer aswell.

@brah4ever: oh bros >> exclusives

Exclusives matter but so do a lot of other things. 3rd party support, price, specs, features, etc.

WiiU had nothing at all going for it outside of exclusives.

Damn... that's a sad pic lol. Poor Wii U.

How else do you think it got to 15m units? It wasn't thanks to multiplats.

Also, Switch's success thus far hinges mightily on plundering the Wii U catalog. Both BotW and Odyssey were intended to be Wii U projects before it was painfully evident that there was little Nintendo could do to change its fate.

This thread is low key bashing xbone as usual. Anyhow both console is marketing disaster with consumer not knowing exactly what the console wants to deliver. Xbox got saved by strong 3rd party relations, wii u is sadly abandoned.

Oh and fyi, it was the ads man. The adverts killed the Wii U...

"D.K.'s in, this gonna be bananas."

"Hot buttered popcorn, that's a deal!"

"I just get a warm feeling inside when I get to crush my older sisters."

"Its a double Yoshi exploshi!"

And so on...

Horrible marketing... I am a pretty serious games, and i think it took me around 6-12 months after the release to figure out that it was a new console and not an add on... of course the terrible third party support didn’t help it either!

nobody wanted the wiiU hardware.

they hated the tablet, the Sd screen, the losing connection if you moved it to the next room, they hated the power, they hated the marketing. nobody wanted to own it in order to play the exclusives.

Terrible marketing and terrible console design/name killed the WiiU.

Marketing is the main factor in console sales, evidenced by the poor wii u sales.

Outside these forums and others similar no one keeps track of exclusives.

The console was a flawed execution of a good concept. If exclusives were all that there's to it, the Dreamcast wouldn't have failed.

Yup and the answer for Nintendont was... Because it wasn't a Handheld. Simple as that. :P

Switch is doomed.

Exclusives do sell consoles. It's the only reason that I buy them. But multiplats add staying power and variety that prevent droughts and fatigue. This is especially important for people who are predominantly console gamers (i.e., don't get that elsewhere on a PC). You can't sell a system, marketed to too narrow a demographic, with Mario alone. Basically nothing was done right with the Wii U from hardware to marketing to 3rd party agreements. Using it as "proof" that exclusives don't sell consoles is a mistake.

How many times does this question have to be asked and answered?

@phbz: YUp the Dreamcast had a lot of stuff against it. It was the next consol from SEGA after they kill the Saturn early because it couldn't compete against the Playstation and the N64. With the Dreamcast everyone were eager to see the PS2 after a phenomenal PS1 and Microsoft was going to enter the consol war ... so yeah

The name.

The U made it sound like some Ubisoft dumb add on.

@clefdefa: SEGA for the most was a disaster in terms of hardware. That they survived the Mega Drive was sort of a miracle such was the mess with the add-ons. Maybe that was made them lose focus with the Saturn.

I think it's rather obvious that exclusives alone don't sell a system, but Nintendo and Microsoft haven't figured out that multiplats + exclusives = gang-buster! Now what they have figured out is the continuous stream and indies + exclusives on a handheld-hybrid = really good sales.

you could also argue that it was the exclusives that managed to get the wiiu to sell 15 million units. take away the wiius exclusives and what would it have sold? what would those sales have been based on?

exclusives do sell consoles. they are not the only reason that makes a console sells. its one of many factors.

the wiiu had a lot working against it.

it was poorly marketed. its some of nintendos worst marketing since the gamecube...when it happened.

it was poorly understud. the fact that people think that the switch is the wiiu done properly shows that people didnt and still dont get it. it was supposed to be a big DS with games using both screens (and the other features).

related to the above: no one used the wiius unique features....except ubisoft and nintendo in 1 game. there are games which would benefit nicely from having an extra screen (and a touch screen at that). football manager. something like elite. strategy games, RPGs and so on. no one made these types of games for the wiiu (or if they did no one knows about them).

no 3rd party support: that ol chestnut. 3rd party games didnt sell on a nintendo platform thus 3rd party games werent made for a nintendo platform. even on the exclusive 3rd party support from japan front it was lacking.

Because exclusives don't sell consoles.

What really sells a console would shock your average hardcore gamer. More at 11.

You must be trolling. The top selling games are COD, Fifa, Madden, and GTAV. Games like Uncharted, zelda, mario, GOW, sell maybe half of what those game sell on a single platform.

@Bread_or_Decide: I am, and it worked well for the first 3 or four fools who deviated to Xbox bashing. ?

HA! Pedro, you are a hoot.

A significant majority of games are multiplats, same goes for a significant majority if revenue.

I actually liked the wiiU, but it was my secondary system. The only reason I bought it was for exclusives. So yeah, exclusives do sell consoles. When you have a system like PS3 or 360 competing with it, with excellent 3rd party support AND exclusives, it's gonna be a hard sale. It's probably more accurate to say that WiiU only sold because of its exclusives, instead of trying to say it flopped because of them. 3rd party filler is needed to pass the time in-between exclusives lol.

I'm glad I got a Wii U and played all those games when I did.

No way could I afford them all now on the Switch.

@Bread_or_Decide: Same... Switch is too much. I want one because my WiiU broke and haven't played Zelda yet, but I'm not spending that crazy amount($300+memory card+near full priced game+regular controller)

Because the Wii u has no games and it’s exclusives suck.

No one likes Nintendo games except Nintendo fanboys. They are a shrinking audience.

Nintendo is dying and switch is a failure.

you must be new to system wars or must have forgotten, a console is only as good as its exclusives.

The bills can wait. Get the switch! :P

heh

I still don't get how they managed to settle on Wii U instead of Wii 2. Surely if they wanted to draw upon the massive Wii userbase, while avoiding any confusion about it being a new product then that would have been better right? Same reason the Vita should have been the PSP 2 imo.

Oh and that's some low effort trolling btw @stuff238

@brah4ever said:

The Wii U had some pretty big exclusives such as Bayonetta 2, Mario 3D World, Xenoblade X, Splatoon, and MK8 and yet it didn't even break 15 million. The Xbox One outsold and that consoles has zero exclusives.

But I thought you guys said exclusives sell consoles?

You're ignoring the thing staring right at you through the window. The Wii U messed up with a lot of things. Weak launch line up, game droughts, killing off the Wii too fast, shitty hardware.

Third party companies wanted the sales of the Wii, without the games that made it possible. "I want you to sell over 100 million consoles, but please don't launch your system with any games so that we can shine!" This is a mistake for several reasons. Without exclusives, your platform does not sell as much. The only games worth a damn that they launched with were Just Dance and NSMBU.

After that, it went a full YEAR before it got games like Wii Fit U, Mario 3D World, etc. Their line up was weak and the games that Wii fans wanted were sparse and few for a long time.

Speaking of the image, notice how in their 7th fiscal year, the Wii beat the launch sales of the Wii U? Not only that, but here's another image:

The Wii was selling more software in 2013 and 2014, than the Wii was, and Nintendo stopped making a lot of games for it in 2011. That system was packing a punch and wasn't ready to die yet. I also think they should have delayed it because Nintendo was not ready for the Wii U. Imagine if they waited until Holiday 2013, and launched with: NSMB, Mario 3D World, Wii Fit, Wii Sports, and Just Dance. Not only that, but kept up momentum by releasing Donkey Kong Country and Mario Kart 8 in the first half of 2013, and then release: Smash, Bayonetta 2, Captain Toad, Shovel Knight, and Hyrule Warriors in the second half. Not a drought in site and they could have kept up the pace by releasing a steady stream of their exclusives. Once they get the sales, then third party follows.

The last point is the hardware. The Wii would have to be killed off faster than the HD twins due to the explosion of HD televisions. At first, most people just had those big box TVs with the yellow, red, and white cord to hook up consoles with. However, at a certain point, HD flat screen TVs were cheap enough for the middle class consumers to jump on them and they just exploded with sales. I remember it starting off my uncle getting one in the living room, then my dad got one when he saw the HD quality. Though that was just the living room. Soon my dad put one in all of our rooms. The Wii couldn't play in HD, so it stood out among the others. However, the motion controls and games were so good that those flaws fell at the wayside. However, they wanted: improved motion controls, HD, improved games, etc. Nintendo gave them a gamepad that looked like a cheap Fisher Price knock off of a tablet. If Nintendo had keep the Wii U, but made the Joy Cons, it would have cost roughly $238 to make. Sell that sucker for $275 or $300 bundled with a game. Justify the higher price by showing the improved motion controls and that it's HD capable now. It would have sold a killing.

Wii U in a nutshell

2012- ???
2013- ???
2014-2015 - little bit of a hot streak
2016- ???
2017- Switch

That is true. If the Xbox One had the third party support of the Wii U, it would have sold even worse. The Xbox One is still flopping, but not as hard as the Wii U due to the third party support disguising the lack of quality exclusives. I also think the Wii U helped the Xbox One look good as well. People are just now writing articles about how the Xbox One doesn't have quality exclusives anymore, and they've had this problem since 2015. It was because the focus was on the Wii U.