I don’t have a blu-ray player; I have a PlayStation 3. I don’t yet have a tablet. I wonder if in a year’s time I’ll be able to say; “I don’t have a tablet. I have a Wii U”?
So far the Wii U has generated a lot of blog chat but it’s not impressed Nintendo’s invenstors. This is what happened to their share price. No prizes for guessing when E3 was.
This is the lowest the share price has been for five years. The market sentiment seemed to be “Too Little. Too Late.”
They may be right. I know I wanted something else from Nintendo and many gamers just don’t get the idea of a fat arse controller.
However, the controller does look very tablet like. If Nintendo get it right then the device may well be tablet like. It’s easy to imagine Amazon having a WiiWare Kindle. Now, N-Europe are reporting that Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has spoken to investors abut the importance of social networks.
Could the placement of Farmville or even Twitter on the Wii U Controller make picking it up even more tempting? I think it could. I fancy a tablet because it’s quick to power up; ideal for checking Facebook, Twitter and email while I’m being lazy on the sofa or even in bed early. For the Wii U Controller to be successful in this sphere then it would need to be as fast to boot up. I suspect the challenge for Nintendo there is that the Wii U itself may need to be on – for the wifi connection.
I don’t mind buying the Wii U to get the controller – reports suggest that they’ll ship as a single SKU. Increasingly I worry that not giving the WUC independent access to the web may be a serious mistake. However, if Nintendo can overcome that and make the WUC an attractive device to pick up for a spot of casual social gaming or networking then I think they’ll turn the shape of their share price graph into an U.
