Legend of Zelda’s Shigeru Miyamoto Claims Tablets Responsible for Poor Market Performance of Wii U!

Nintendo's releases on the gaming market have been a bit of a hit and miss story lately, as the Wii U in particular ended up suffering from a lot of problems with its popularity, and the device ultimately failed to realize the potential that was predicted for it. And while the company's die-hard fans are still defending their favorite developer and claiming that the Wii U could have been luckier in different circumstances, Shigeru Miyamoto who created "Legend of Zelda" seems convinced that tablets are to blame for the device's failure.

Just how has the Wii U been doing on the market since its launch anyway? It's been two and a half years since the device came out, and in that time, the company has managed to sell 9.5 million units. Comparatively, Sony's PlayStation 4 registered the same sales volume in about 9 months. There's an obvious difference here, one that can't be outright explained with the fact that the PS4 is one of the market leaders.

According to Miyamoto, the main problem for the Wii U were tablets and their rising popularity at the time when the device arrived to the market. This was the biggest hurdle in its way, and a problem that the company apparently underestimated at first, only to end up succumbing to it in the end.

Many people were indeed comparing the Wii U to a tablet back when it came out, even though the device had some obvious differences in its design philosophy and general approach. It's hard to say if that could have attributed positively or negatively to the success of the Wii U, but it's a fact that the situation was like that for a while.

On the other hand, Nintendo had some issues with their marketing which they failed to address until it was too late. The company didn't manage to insert themselves in a solid position on the market, and this cost them a lot in the long run. Arguably, the Wii U could have enjoyed more success if Nintendo had presented its qualities more aggressively, but the company didn't focus on their marketing so strongly back then, and people ended up ignoring the device to a large extent.

Miyamoto is still hopeful for the company's future. According to him, their next console, the NX, should definitely reignite the interest towards their products and remind people that Nintendo know how to make fun hardware. Of course, this time we would expect them to be a lot more responsible with their marketing, and we wouldn't be surprised if they're already preparing in this regard.

So far though, we haven't heard much about the new console and we don't know exactly what will set it apart from the rest of the market. Miyamoto's positive attitude towards it is encouraging, but then again, he was also positive about the Wii U and we can't say that this alone is a factor indicative of the device's success or failure.

He did admit that he's not actively involved in the decision making process in the development of the new console however, as he's more focused on the software side right now. For example, he has a new "Starfox" project on his hands, and that's been taking up his time quite well. For the most part, he has apparently detached himself from the hardware development process in the company, and we don't know if he'll have any major contributions to the NX in the end.

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Source: Legend of Zelda's Shigeru Miyamoto Claims Tablets Responsible for Poor Market Performance of Wii U!