[Classic Technology Research Institute] Nintendo's confident but bumpy host: Wii U.

The Wii released by Nintendo in 2006 once again made Nintendo a great success. Unfortunately, this joy did not last long. Soon, the Wii's somatosensory gameplay can't make more users feel novel. In addition, the Wii's internal hardware specifications are far weaker than those of rivals PS3 and Xbox360, and more and more high-quality masterpieces have been launched on rival hosts in the later period. However, when their Wii can only play games produced by Nintendo, the battle made Nintendo more and more difficult, and voices began to appear among players. I hope Nintendo can catch up with its rivals.

In 20 12, Nintendo first introduced the successor model of Wii before Sony and Microsoft. Its appearance is similar to Wii, but it has a controller similar to a tablet computer, which makes people wonder what kind of freshness this design will bring to players. The name of this host is also very similar to the Wii. Its name is "WiiU". 1October 20th1218 was first released in the United States, and it was released in Japan on February 20th1218. The official price is 25,000 yen.

The appearance of WiiU, the first home console equipped with FullHD 1080p in Nintendo's history, has given many people who are already interested in Wii new hope. First of all, in terms of backward compatibility, WiiU can still play Wii games, which Nintendo has been doing very well. Secondly, with the cooperation of AMDRonHDGPU, WiiU became the first video game instrument console in Nintendo's history to support FullHD 1080p, which sounds like a big increase, but don't forget that WiiU was already 20 12 when it was launched, and the specification of 1080p has been used in rival camps for a long time. Nintendo has just started, but it is better than before. By the way, Wii games will not follow HD even if they are executed on WiiU.

▲ In 2065438+02, Nintendo launched WiiU, the successor of Wii. The biggest feature is that the Wiiu controller "WiiUGamePad" seems to be a tablet computer. In addition to the basic control functions, it also adds many tablet-like elements, such as touch screen, microphone, NFC transmission, video lens and so on. In the early days of listing, it aroused the curiosity of many people. What kind of gameplay is expected from this controller?

▲ Now let's try how much you know about WiiU! Click on the picture above, or click here to send "WiiU" to the electricity teacher and take the exam immediately. Share the post publicly on Facebook and you can win the raffle for "Amibo Louis, Abu and Yao Xi". There are three places in the lucky draw until September 1.

▲Amiibo version of Louis, Boo and Yoshi will be divided into three awards, with a total of three places.

Unfortunately, GamePad has various functions and cannot be used alone. In addition to the specification evolution of the host itself, the biggest special feature of WiiU is that its own controller is not Yangchun's WiiRemote controller, but a handle similar to a tablet computer. Its name is WiiUGamePad.

In fact, this gamepad has many functions. Except for the original control function, it is probably the same as the original Pro handle. It also added a 6.2-inch touch screen with a resolution of 850x480. Its main function is to be used as a secondary screen when playing some games, such as the quick prop bar. Players click it to take effect immediately. You can also directly display the pictures on TV at the same time, such as the WiiU system picture at startup, and you can use the GamePad click function.

In addition, this gamepad also adds many functions similar to those on a tablet, such as video lens, through which players can take photos or have video conversations. When it comes to dialogue, of course, a microphone is indispensable. In addition, the gamepad also has a built-in NFC function, and the bought amiibo humanoid can read amiibo data just by touching the gamepad. There is also infrared function, which can sense, or operate the TV as a remote control and so on.

From now on, the gamepad can almost be regarded as the prototype of Nintendo SWITCH, with similar functions and appearance. Unfortunately, at that time, this gamepad seemed to be fully functional, but it could not be used as a stand-alone machine. Must be used with WiiU host. If you want to take it outside as a handheld host, such as playing built-in games or using applications, it's a pity that you can't. In addition, if it is used as a pure controller, it will be inconvenient to use and there will be problems in battery life.

▲ Although WiiU is expected to have sales of 1 100 million units like Wii, unfortunately, under the strong attack of rivals Sony and Microsoft, and the related services of WiiU console are not perfect, it is impossible to obtain a large number of game development support from third-party manufacturers. The final sales of Wiiu is only about one tenth of that of Wii, and it was discontinued in just four years, making it the shortest-lived and worst-selling home console in Nintendo history.

At the initial stage of listing, the network problem was solved slowly, and the host was creative, but it was difficult for manufacturers to develop, resulting in too few games. Originally, Nintendo hoped that the launch of WiiU would be like Wii, so it set the sales target at 1 100 million units. However, in just four years, time proved that WiiU not only failed to meet Nintendo's initial expectations, but even only about one-tenth of the Wii. In four years, only10 million units were sold. WiiU failed to create a miracle for Nintendo again, but became the lowest sales record of Nintendo's worst home console (VirtualBoy is worse, but it is positioned as a handheld).

If we want to discuss it seriously, there are actually many reasons for the failure of WiiU, which can be roughly summarized as the following two points:

System failure at the initial stage of listing: Nintendo suffered a great loss at the initial stage of launching WiiU because of the software update of the host. In fact, it can be seen that Nintendo did not adjust all aspects of WiiU to perfection at first, but planned to slowly fix minor system problems through software updates, and then attempted to seize the market opportunity by listing as soon as possible.

In fact, there is nothing wrong with this practice. After all, it is common for the host of video game instruments to update the firmware of the host by using the network, but the bad thing is that Nintendo's network service at this end is not done well. Many people happily bought the mainframe home when it went on the market. After opening it, they found that it needed to be updated, but the update would take several hours. But Nintendo's service on the server side is not good. When a large number of users update the network, it may lead to the explosion of the server, resulting in the interruption of download and update, and the incomplete update of the host, resulting in the failure of the host to start normally (usually called brick replacement).

This kind of user experience is a very bad thing for consumers, and because of this, the then president had to apologize to consumers only two weeks after WiiU went public. Moreover, this updated firmware caused the reading operation of the host computer to be not very smooth, and it was not solved until it was online for about half a year. Some users once said, "How do you feel that the operation of booting WiiU will become smooth one day?" It is enough to prove that the original program was not adjusted in place and the ducks were put on the shelves.

It takes more time and cost to develop a host in an unfriendly environment: when Nintendo announced the WiiU in the early days, the gamepad attached to the WiiU really attracted many people's attention. At that time, tablet computers were quite popular in the market, and many people were expecting what special gameplay such a tablet controller could bring. Unfortunately, it turns out that this gamepad not only failed to win by surprise, but also led to the failure of WiiU. GamePad itself was originally intended as a second auxiliary screen when playing, but unfortunately it can't be used independently, and actually I don't know which side to look at when playing. Nintendo did not make a special exclusive design for GamePad itself, which led to some chicken ribs later, and even many players felt that it was better to go back and use the traditional Pro handle for better operation.

Moreover, the gameplay like GamePad is of course an innovation for Nintendo itself, but it is very difficult for other game developers. Under the same time schedule and development cost, there is really no way to spend more time and cost to make more adjustments to the WiiU platform. Most of them will focus on two similar platforms, PS3 and Xbox360, and then launch a dual version, which can save more benefits. In addition, Nintendo's support for this resource is not high, and shortly after the launch of WiiU, both PS4 and XboxOne went on the market, which caught up with the sales of WiiU in a short time, which made third-party manufacturers want to launch games on WiiU. Low willingness.

Therefore, few non-Nintendo manufacturers are willing to spend more money to launch games on WiiU if they are not the manufacturers sponsored by Nintendo itself (such as Platinum Studio which launched Magic Warrior 2). This is one of the reasons why there are too few games on WiiU.

Only WiiU, the game of our company, has fallen into the shortest life after only four years of listing. Nintendo launched WiiU for about two years, which shows that Sony's PS4 sales are quite strong, while Microsoft's Xbox360 is not as strong as the PS4, but its sales have almost reached WiiU in the past two years. In the estimated financial report of 20 14, Nintendo revised the estimated sales volume of WiiU and related games in large quantities. At this time, we can actually see that Nintendo intends to give up the WiiU and invest resources to develop a new mainframe, that is, Nintendo SWITCH, which is now crashing.

Although WiiU is a failed console in terms of sales volume, it must be said that there are many great games in its later period, such as Mario Kart 8, Master Mario for hegemony, Paintball Wars, Baoke Boxing (ポッ Boxing), plus Magic Warrior 2 and Zero which were monopolized by WiiU before. At this time, WiiU consoles on the market are out of stock (because Nintendo has shifted the focus of production line resources to new consoles), and even the second-hand market in Japan is hard to find, which has formed a very special phenomenon.

2065438+In March 2006, there was a rumor that Nintendo was about to stop production of WiiU, but it was denied by Nintendo. On April 27th, Nintendo announced the news of the new host "NX", which is now the SWITCH, indicating that the main energy in the future will be on NX. In the same year 1 65438+1October1,Nintendo announced that the WiiU was discontinued in official website, and the following year was 65438+1October 3 1. WiiU became the shortest-lived and worst-selling home game console in Nintendo's history.

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