Family Games Publisher Little Orbit Says We Shouldn’t Underestimate Wii U

Matt Scott, founder and CEO of family games publisher Little Orbit, still thinks there’s hope for Nintendo to boost Wii U sales figures. Scott believes part of Nintendo’s problem has been poor marketing around the console, but this can be rectified. He went onto say that he believes Nintendo needs to be more open with consumers and developers.

“The Wii U is an interesting platform: I think it’s challenged, no question,” Scott said. “Every publisher is caught between the audience that’s out there, and the content they want to put out there. You’re always looking for where the audience is playing games.”

“One of the challenges with Wii U started at the very beginning with Nintendo because they couldn’t target a demographic,” he explained. “They had a zombie game and this and that at launch, and with the Wii it was clearly family-oriented off-demographic. They had content that said, this is what the Wii’s all about.”

“With the Wii U, it had two major problems,” he added. “One is that they didn’t lock the demographic down, they had just a bunch of everything. And two, I believe that they mismarketed it. By calling it the Wii U, everybody thought it was an accessory for the Wii, they thought it was a tablet for the Wii.”

“Why not call it the Wii 2? I just think there was consumer confusion and it’s hard to un-ring that bell now since they’ve been out for almost two years.”

“I think it’s got a unique play pattern with the tablet,” Scott said. “I think kids and adults like the feel of the tablet and that play pattern. There are some really exciting asymmetrical things you can do where you’ve got one guy controlling the field and a bunch of people playing next to him with Wii Remotes, and it’s compelling. It’s different.”

“I think the Wii U should have been the Wii 2,” he reiterated. “I think the consumers that see that, that adopted it — that’s who we’re making games for.”

“Never underestimate Nintendo, right?” he said. “We’ve learned that over and over. Everybody saw GameCube and went oh, this isn’t working, and then it blew us all away. I tend to take a fairly straight view of Nintendo, I think they have a methodology to the ideas they are implementing. I don’t think they are implementing them fast enough, but there are some compelling play patterns between digital products and interaction.”

“Just communicate what you want to do,” he added. “They make great first-party games and design experiences that we all love and that are fun to play, so just tell us what you’re going to do and I think that’s the core problem.”