14 DAY TRIAL // Nintendo's Wii U marketing effort has been a disaster, according to games industry analysts, but the Japanese company can turn things around by accurately showing off the new home console and by releasing plenty of new games for it.
Nintendo released the Wii U back in November but sales haven't been that impressive, largely because not a lot of games appeared for it and due to Nintendo's poor marketing efforts.
The company itself admitted its lackluster promotional campaigns and has pledged to fix things going forward.
Analyst David Cole of DFC Intelligence believes Nintendo made some huge mistakes with the Wii U but emphasized that, because of its poor job, it can start again from scratch.
"Nintendo of America's performance the past couple years has been a disaster on almost every level. Much of this was due to lack of execution on basic stuff like product marketing," Cole told GamesIndustry.
"They forgot Marketing 101 for the Wii U and no product could have done well without basic marketing support. Clearly a change in execution was long overdue. The damage done is enormous but there is the possibility of a turnaround. The fact is that the general public is not really aware the Wii U even exists so it is an opportunity to almost start from scratch."
Games will be an important part of the Wii U's resurrection, at least according to Asif A. Khan, the CFO of Virtue LLC.
"I believe that 3DS offers a perfect template for how Wii U could succeed in the future," he said. "Nintendo had an equally poor 3DS launch lineup as we have seen with the Wii U. One thing that holds true for most systems they have made, software moves the hardware. What has given life to the 3DS in recent months is the introduction of high quality first party titles and I believe we will see the same process play out for the Wii U."
Nintendo has already pledged to launch more titles for the Wii U in order to boost sales.