Not the hands of an Ambassador
I was one of the people highly pissed off by the 3DS price drop and subsequent ambassador program. There was very little about the situation that any one could say to console me before the games started rolling out and I got a chance to play them. There was a lot of talk in my house about how 20 games, many I've already owned before, wouldn't be enough value, shouldn't be given at all, and how all I really wanted was for all 3DS early adopters to get a $50 refund instead.
Then I got my hands on the games. I even replayed the ones I had... And then I shut my fat trap.
The Ambassador program won me over. In fact, it won me over so much that I almost didn't go and get a Zelda themed 3DS months later (or give my original one to someone else, who we were going to get one as a gift any way), because at the time I was so unsure if the program would transfer over to a newly bought system, that I didn't want to take the risk of losing those games. I almost learned too late that it would all transfer over, almost missing the window to get a Zelda bundle at retail, but ended up being lucky to have some great people at my favorite Gamestop track down the last one in the surrounding four states.
I love mine
Anyway, that was a bit of a rocky time to Nintendo and its customers, but oh boy, did I not foresee what would happen with the Wii U.
Now, with the Wii U and all its varied problems, I don't really feel like it needs to be cleaned up by throwing free games at people, and Nintendo seems to feel the same way.
The 3DS wasn't yet 6 months along when the price drop hit, and even 6 months was still too soon for consumers (but not to save Nintendo/the 3DS. The cut, and the new red color, really was great for salvaging the situation.). As the Wii U goes down in price it'll be about a years time past since its launch, over double the time it took the 3DS to do the same, and it'll be following a much more tumultuous year of loss then the 3DS had in its few months of life, before its price drop. The Wii U really needs this drop.
Except, I don't think this is exactly what the Wii U needs to vitalize itself. Not surprisingly, what I think it really needs is more games people want to play. And, because of that point, it needs the promised-yet-abandoned 3rd party support, that I don't think is totally Nintendo's fault this time around (I have serious thoughts on their past in this failings and why they happened).
Its not hard to believe that, this time, its on the 3rd parties making promises they weren't really going to follow up on -It didn't take them all that long to bail out, or claim the simply couldn't figure out what to do with the gamepad. It strongly suggests that no one was trying and Nintendo should be far more angry then they appear to be. If the company were a child, it'd be seeing a psychologist for abandonment issues.
What could they possibly give us?
You really can't fix a problem with free stuff that doesn't exist. The games the 3DS got were games that were going to be making it to the system eventually, even if many of the games, the majority being Gameboy Advance games, are still nowhere in sight. If the Wii U had games coming for it that could be rushed out to save the system, then, I think, Nintendo would have learned from their experience with the 3DS' Ambassador program and have simply released these (as in any) games for a greatly reduced price and made some money while giving the players exactly what they want to save the system, with at least the same promise of improved functionality from a later update, like 3DS users got with their games. I don't think they're being as obstinate as people like to claim, I just don't think they have all the resources people seem to think they do sometimes.
Nintendo may also need to think about dropping the basic package all together. Reports (that I know I've read, but I can't find) have said that the deluxe package is the one people seem to be going after and, at just $50 more, with a game and some extras, is really a no brainer. Even looking online, some big retailers aren't even carrying the basic box. So maybe Nintendo's already started this initiative.
My thought on this is that if the lesser box, that has less memory; is a different color; is missing a game and a few extra bits, isn't selling well, and people are choosing to pay $50 more to get all of that, then it seems like a simple choice to cut the lesser thing out completely and save the money you would have spent to further manufacture and market it. It just wasn't working. Hopefully they've arrived at the same idea.
Long story short: The Wii U doesn't need an ambassador program. If anything, Nintendo's been rolling out the value with $0.30 game sales on games they already have on the Wii U's eShop and the digital deluxe promotion.
It may be really cynical to say it, but it sounds like anyone clamoring for an ambassador program for the Wii U are just looking for a hand out. And thats funny, cause thats something a lot of us who were mad at the 3DS price drop, were accused of doing too. Seems like what goes around, comes around.
No comments:
Post a Comment