What Wii U's Got Here Is Failure To Communicate

June 21, 2012 Luke Henderson

In an E3 interview with GameSpot, Nintendo marketing executive Scott Moffit admitted that the Wii U has a messaging problem. As if to hammer home the point, that same day, CNN's (since-corrected) hands-on preview of the system led off by asking if the Wii U controller would breathe new life into the aging Wii console. Fast-forward to Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime's appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last Friday, where the unquestioned gamer Fallon was clearly confused as to whether the new console was simply an add-on to the original Wii.

You mean people are confusing this for the Wii? Shocking.

These are examples of confusion coming from people who should know exactly what the Wii U is. If a technology journalist writing for one of the world's largest news organizations and a talk show host capping off his post-E3 "Video Games Week" with a live demo of the system from the company's president aren't clear on whether the Wii U is just a fancy controller or a new system unto itself, then who else could be expected to get it? Will the casual audiences Nintendo has been so successful courting instantly grasp the product the same way they did the Wii? Will that confusion build back the mainstream barriers to entry that the company broke down with the launch of the original Wii?

From GameSpot