There’s a lot of people who don’t understand that the Wii U is more than just a controller for the Wii, but that doesn’t mean they’re stupid. It’s important to understand how much we’re geeking out over this device, which gives us a much higher awareness of all the details (and we still make plenty of mistakes). Scott Moffitt has admitted this, sharing that “it’s confusing relative to the Wii”, and:
With motion control gaming, when you saw Mr. Iwata and Reggie stand up and swing a motion controller, it brought it to life immediately. With a second screen controller, you need to see what’s on the second screen, so by nature it’s a more complex system. It’s less visually easy to understand. As for how we’re planning to make it clear that it’s a new system: well, we want to get it in people’s hands. That’s what E3 is all about and from now until launch. We want consumers to experience it for themselves, whether it’s in a store, at a gaming event, or at a press event. Once they do that, I think people will really start to understand how the GamePad changes the way you can connect with games and other players.
The question is, can Nintendo make it work? It’s unfortunate when people confuse a piece of technology so early in its lifecycle, but people made the same mistake with the 3DS (and are still probably making it) and it’s selling well enough. I think calling the device the “Wii 2″ would have be so much simpler though.
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