For once, an analyst that’s not Michael Pachter has weighed in on the Wii U issue. Christine Arrington, a senior games analyst at IHS Electronics & Media believes that the Wii U’s current retail failure lies in the fact that uninformed retailers were not equipped to inform consumers of the differences between the Wii and the Wii U. In fact, Arrington admits during a secret shopper trip that one retailer told her there was no difference between the Wii and the Wii U.
“There was nothing that you could put in front of everybody that said, ‘This is what the experience is. I think one of the things that was a real indicator of that was just, anecdotally, if you went into a retailer and you talked to somebody in the games department, they didn’t even understand what it was.
I did the secret shopper kind of thing, and they would say, ‘Well, there’s no difference between the Wii and Wii U.'”
Despite the confusion and the misunderstanding surrounding the Wii and the Wii U, Arrington believes there is redemption to be had in something similar to Wii Sports.
“There should have been a Wii Sports-type game that let everybody get it. Those huge franchises would have gotten the loyal Nintendo person, but it was Wii Sports that got all the people outside the Nintendo world to look and say, ‘This is a really, really neat, fun thing to do.'”
What do you think of Arrington’s assessment of the Wii U situation? Do you agree with it? Let us know in the comments below.