Nintendo's worst mistakes.

[VG_Addict]

Nintendo is a very successful business, and gaming wouldn't be the same without them. Unfortunately, they've had their share of missteps.

What do you consider the worst decisions Nintendo have ever made? My pick would be sticking with cartridges for the N64, causing them to lose third party support.

[lwcook]

I would go with how they named the Wii U. I get they were trying to piggyback off the massive success, but they missed with that big time. A lot of people had no idea it was a totally new console. Could have gone with Wii 2, Super Wii, or almost anything else and I think it would have landed with better with consumers.

[marurun]

Virtual Boy. That CPU could have done some cool stuff, but not in that.

[fuctfuct]

Not fully respecting their old library, while activity going after people who are forced to do it illegally.

Not re releasing a full S/NES console. I realize why they do not.. but it would be massively popular if they did. Even if it was FPGA. It's like saying no to hundreds of millions of dollars.

[Hazerd]

Not sure about costly mistakes, but since the Wii their console names have been crap, should just stick to development names like NX, Dolphin, Revolution.

They should of held off on the Wii maybe a bit longer and released it with HDMI support like the Wii U, or they should of scrapped the Wii U and just went right to the Switch.

Im sure the Wii U naming scheme lost them money, i still feel bitter than i bought a Wii U and Nintendo pretty much re-released all its exclusives for the Switch like the Wii U never existed.

[JoeAwesome]

i still feel bitter than i bought a Wii U and Nintendo pretty much re-released all its exclusives for the Switch like the Wii U never existed.

I can tell you you're not alone on this. It was a huge reason I put off the switch for years.

[Nemoide]

I agree that calling the Wii U the Wii U was a mistake. "Wii" didn't really mean anything, but it clicked with a huge amount of people who weren't hardcore gamer types. I can see why Nintendo wanted to reconnect with that audience, but "Wii U" doesn't really sound like it's a new console, it sounds like some vague upgrade. I can imagine an older casual gamer reading about it and seeing "oh, there's a new version of the Wii that lets you play with an extra screen - well, I don't need that, I'm happy with the old Wii" and for the more hardcore gamer crowd, associating their new console with the casual-haven that is the Wii also doesn't really do it any favors. "Wii U" doesn't really have any simple-to-grasp connotations the way "Super Nintendo" or even "Gamecube" does. Is it supposed to be "We You?" I don't get it.

The Wii U had other problems, but its name is definitely a big one.

[JoeAwesome]

Seems like a bad joke- The reason why the Switch’s early 1st party library did so well was because the same people who bought those games didn’t play the WiiU.

[marurun]

Nintendo honestly expected the WiiU to be a success. The Wii and the DS were, and the WiiU was both! Why shouldn’t it have succeeded? And so they sank quality dev time and money into games for it. Makes perfect sense to me they’d try to reuse some of that work on Switch. Given how poorly the WiiU sold there was still a huge untapped market for those games. And Nintendo has never cared a bit about the post-sale market. So while it is frustrating, I don’t think rereleasing WiiU titles on Switch can be considered a mistake in the least.

[opa]

Yeah, as an early Wii U adopter I'm a little mixed on Switch re-releases. I just kept my Wii U copies so I'm not purchasing them again.

It makes financial sense to repackage them.
>few people bought a Wii U
>ergo few copies were sold
>an eff ton bought a Switch
>an eff ton of potential dollars

Edit: what maru said. Just saw your post.