Reggie: We have to do a better job communicating the NX

The Wii might not have sold as much as anyone or even Nintendo had predicted but it still has some of this generations finest games. You might have great games Wii U, but know one knew what you were about and that wasn’t helped by Nintendo’s confusing marketing of the console from the get go – and Nintendo know that.

Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime has reflected on the Wii U, and also looks forward to the NX in an interview with [a]list;

Many thought Nintendo was in dire straits after GameCube failed to find an audience, and then Wii exploded. Are there lessons learned from Wii U that are being applied to NX?

Every time we launch a new platform, every time we launch a critical new game, we always learn. We always do our breakdown of what worked, what didn’t, and certainly we’ve done that with Wii U, and we continue to believe that the innovation of the second screen was a worthwhile concept. The games that we’ve launched on the Wii U are hugely compelling: Splatoon, Super Mario Maker, Smash Bros., Bayonetta 2, the Super Mario game, The Legend of Zelda. Arguably, if you line up all of the single platform games for Wii U and the other two platforms, we have by far the most unique games that are highly rated by consumers and highly rated by the media. So those things worked.

One of the things that we have to do better when we launch the NX—we have to do a better job communicating the positioning for the product. We have to do a better job helping people to understand its uniqueness and what that means for the game playing experience. And we have to do a better job from a software planning standpoint to have that continuous beat of great new games that are motivating more and more people to pick up the hardware and more and more people to pick up the software. Those are the critical lessons. And as I verbalize them, they’re really traditional lessons within the industry. You have to make sure people understand the concept, you have to make sure you’ve got a great library of games, and when you do that, you tend to do well.

The interview also focused on Nintendo’s new found love using smartphone games as feeder to their franchises as well as Reggie’s thoughts on the upcoming Universal Theme Parks. Be sure to read the rest of the interview here.