With the Wii U set to launch on November 15th I thought I'd take a look at how the system is poised to do. When the system was first announced at E3 2011, many were confused by it. Nintendo's promo for the Wii U focused heavily on its new controller, and because of this many weren't sure if Nintendo was showing a new system or a new controller and massive software update for the current Wii. While Nintendo has corrected the confusion from this, it has caused them to have difficulty generating a lot of buzz about the product. The same day that Nintendo made it's launch announcement for the system was the same day the iphone 5 was revealed. The announcement was almost completely overshadowed by the iphone 5. Furthering Nintendo's difficulties with building hype.
One of the goals Nintendo set for themselves with the Wii U was to recapture the hardcore gamers(hardcore gamer: a gamer who spends a significant amount of time playing games). This is one of the problems that plagued the Wii later into it's life. Many of the more casual players never bought anything for the Wii other than a Wii fit and maybe another first party title for the system, leaving many third party developers little reason to make anything quality for the system. This combined with nearly no online services for games made many hardcore gamers simply abandon the system. The Wii U has addressed both of these problems. Nintendo has completely revamped their online services and has lined up third party games with some them being exclusive to the system. The question is will it be enough? A recent statistic shows that 85% of people who try Facebook games will only play them for one day. If these are the same casual players who bought a Wii and never really used it again, will they really want to spend $250-$350 on a new Wii U. Whether this will be enough to win some of the hardcore audience remains to be seen but these are strong steps in the right direction.
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