Wii U Sales Numbers and Exclusives May Draw Third Party Developers Back Says Nintendo
The Nintendo Wii U is having a great turn around in the last month, and after dismal sales and support from third party developers, gamers and game-makers seem to be coming back.
Nintendo of America's Scott Moffitt recently told Forbes he was confident third party developers would flood the console in 2014.
"We don't see this as an either-or proposition. Nintendo is in the unique position of being both a hardware manufacturer as well as a software producer. We want Wii U to be the console that every developer wants to publish on."
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He continued, "A key way to make that happen is to grow the installed base of Wii U owners, and we know that current Wii U owners are very happy with their purchases. Our great lineup in the second half of the year will create more buyers, and beyond that third-party support is important to attract as diverse an audience as possible."
Wii U Daily pointed out that so far the console only has two third party companies creating games for their platform, Ubisoft and Warner Bros Interactive. Activision only has Call of Duty: Ghosts on the console while Electronic Arts left completely.
Not only does the console have excellent exclusive games coming this holiday season, but they are also increasing their promotion.
Nintendo U.K. recently admitted one of the biggest problems the Wii U is facing is that people do not know it is a new system and relate the console to the regular Wii.
Nintendo will be partnering with Tesco to create more awareness for the console with a series of promotional campaigns and advertisements, reported VG247.com.
The company will send 300,000 Tesco customers who bought a Wii a five-page booklet explaining all about the Wii U and including money-off vouchers for games.
Tesco will also continuously play commercials for Mario, Donkey Kong, and Zelda until Christmas. Also, coming are press advertorials and a promotional tour set to reach around 115,500 shoppers.
"We haven't had the sales we wanted on Wii U hardware. We haven't had the software for most of this year. But we have some quite ambitious numbers, particularly with some of our biggest franchises coming," said U.K. marketing director Shelly Pearce. "Our monthly tracking shows that Wii remains the No.1 console for brand awareness. This offers us a massive opportunity to convert Wii owners to Wii U."
She also said Nintendo has a lot of work to do to be on the up-and-up, but the interest is definitely growing.
"There was a big misconception at launch about what Wii U is. And one of the big messages is that this is a new console and a new controller. There are many people out there that don't know what this is," she explained.
