Why the Wii U is a surprisingly poor piece of Japanese engineering
Wii U (2012)
Wii U (2012)
It’s more trouble in paradise for me, readers - the old motor vehicle is giving me some issues again. Look, you can tell just by looking at my car that I don’t ask for much out of a vehicle. You can tell this by the moss growing on the windows. Or, I could invite you to sit inside and observe the pet mouse colony I have living in there.
Yes, my old Volkswagen Polo is going to be entering its 19th year now - and some cracks are beginning to show in the hardware. This is a bit surprising, because they say that when it comes to car hardware and reliability, you can’t beat the Germans or Japanese.
That’s probably true, on the whole, but this isn’t my first bit of car trouble; I’ve had to put Kylie on costly life-support and make her undergo surgery on more than one occasion. Yes, I’m one of those fools who names their cars, and mine is called Kylie - she has a lovely rear-end, you see.
I’m probably a mechanic’s dream though, because I only ever go to them when I’m absolutely desperate. I don’t want hassle, I don’t want to shop around and I don’t even take much interest in how much it’s all going to cost. If you’ve ever heard the stories about those cheeky garage snakes, charging customers for special air for their tyres, or a can of honk juice… those stories were probably about me.
Listen, the way I see it, the car should just work. I don’t need any frills after that. I’ll sit in the thing and freeze without aircon, I’ll just roll my eyes and sensibly chuckle when the hubcaps fall off. I can even overlook a broken seatbelt buckle, and just be extra careful not to crash instead. Just get me from A to B, that’s all I ask.
I didn’t think my car would be beaten so easily, if I’m quite honest. Its issues are not too bad… on paper. I’m not rolling with three wheels, or driving without a windscreen and spitting broken glass out of my mouth just yet. It’s just a combination of little things.
In summary: one windscreen wiper’s rubber doodad is hanging off. Fine. I have long since dispensed with the car’s hubcaps. Ugly, but also fine. More worryingly, my brake lights only work a couple of times per day - otherwise they are, to use a German technical phrase, kaput. I’d say that’s fine too, unless you’re the luckless fool in the car behind me - in which case, watch out.
Of course, the legislators see things differently, which means my car is not roadworthy, strictly speaking. But it’s still alive, after 19 years, and that’s good enough for me. The fight between precision German engineering and my own criminal negligence rages on, but Volkswagen are still winning comfortably.
I’ve got to hand it to the Germans, they’ve really delivered me a bulletproof car. Can the Japanese car manufacturers match that? Well… yes, probably. Japanese cars may be the most reliable of all. There are Toyota Corollas on the road today that were probably built in Dickensian times. And no nation on earth is going to give you cooler in-car gadgets than Japan.
Would that the Japanese reputation for car reliability and functionality extended to Nintendo’s Wii U console, mind you. Ahh, the poor, maligned Wii U. Released to no momentum, no game library and ultimately no expectation. Even its initial reveal video and marketing campaign were disasters - delivery so cack-handedly, that even the hardcore vets like me didn’t realise that we were witnessing a new console.
And things haven’t gotten any better in retrospect, either. To this day there must be, I don’t know, billions of people out there who thought the Wii U was merely a new accessory for the ball-blisteringly popular Wii, in the form of a gynormous, not so sleek gamepad.
The system released with a litany of third party games, about twelve years after they had already come out on Sony and Microsoft consoles. The price point for such an underpowered console with a weak USP was ridiculous, and the model I eventually bought for next-to-nothing had a piddly 8GB hard-drive.
Let’s consider the gamepad - almost as big as the console itself. In very short order, it has been made to look absolutely ridiculous by the Nintendo Switch. It boasts “Off TV Play”, in case you’re in the 1980s and still living in a one TV household. What it definitely doesn’t boast about is its 10 foot range, and a battery life that doesn’t last pissing time.
Prior to the incredible hybrid machine that is the Switch, the Wii U Gamepad seemed to be some sort of half-hearted effort by Nintendo to give their latest home console a semblance of portability. This portability is hamstrung somewhat by the fact that the console obviously always has to be plugged in, and so too does the TV, unless you’re fine with lower-res Zelda.
I’m perfectly alright with that, to be fair. But now you’ve got to take into account the controller’s charge cable as well. The gamepad needs to be kept on a wire almost all the time, and the fact that the bloody thing seems to turn itself on and flash for no earthly reason doesn’t help its longevity either.
Nintendo games have tended to struggle badly for shelf space in Ireland, if you want to go down the dreaded bricks and mortar route. The fact that some shops had to fill out Wii U sections with Wii ports of Just Dance and overpriced 3DS games sort of tells its own tragic story.
In any given store, there were probably more Amiibos out on the shop floor than there were Wii U titles. That’s a great way to inspire confidence in your machine isn’t it, having more action figures to sell than games? And you’ll probably get more bang for your buck out of that €20 figure than the tiny amount of content it unlocks.
I want to go back to that reveal video for the Wii U, which really is something else. Honestly, it should be used in universities and courses as a key case study of how not to market your new product. My bestie and I watch every video Nintendo put out, and even we were left confused by it.
Is it a new console or not? A Wii accessory? A trimmed down Wii? It’s not even funny that they mention the ‘New Controller’ a dozen times, but they never once say ‘New Console’. And if we fanboys couldn’t work it out, then what chance did parents, gift-givers, retailers and shareholders have?
Its dismal sales and near total lack of consumer presence may not tell the real story. The Wii U didn’t lack games, and I’d be lying through my teeth like a car mechanic if I was to say that I had no fun with the thing. The fact that I could play Breath of the Wild on it, as well as Mario Kart 8, the latest Smash Bros, and even less heralded titles like Star Fox Zero, Bayonetta 2 and Xenoblade Chronicles X - that stuff was all incredibly positive.
Even Breath of the Wild alone had a chance of salvaging the whole console. And it’s certainly got plenty of other strong Nintendo hits (we’ll forget about the third parties for now): a God-tier Zelda game, unquestionably the best Mario Kart game, an okayish bah-bah Mario game, and even a Yoshi, a Donkey Kong, Pikmin, a Mario level maker, Splatoon...
Sold under a different name, with a different look and a less embarrassing controller, the Wii U could have been sensational, just as much as the Switch has proven to be. As it is, a string of terrible marketing decisions and more than a few prideful Japanese egos ensures that this particular piece of engineering was never able to clamber out of first gear.
9 January 2024