Mario Mondays: Trouble In Mario Land

Welcome to Mario Mondays, where I discuss all things Nintendo!

A disclaimer before I start: Yes I am a Nintendo fanatic.  Have been since the early 90s.  That doesn’t preclude me from calling them on the carpet if things start to hit the fan, however.

Yeah, everyone knows that the Wii U is NOT selling all that well.  Whether it’s the GamePad, or the fact that third parties have all but abandoned the Wii U, or whatever, the fact remains that the Wii U is not exactly selling units.

So, what has Nintendo decided to do about it?  Well, Iwata and all the senior staff and even I think the board are all taking huge pay cuts as penance for the Wii U practically squandering its one-year lead on the Xbox One and the Playstation 4.

And that was all Iwata did.  He then moves on to proclaim something that I think shocked everyone, myself included: Nintendo DS on the Virtual Console… ON WII U.  I think that was Iwata giving a nice poke in the eye to everyone who was suggesting that Nintendo give up on trying to sell the Wii U with the Wii U GamePad and instead doubling down on the Wii U.  

Someone on NintendoLife basically said “Nintendo is listening to its fans and giving them the exact opposite [i.e. the fans ask for GameCube on the Virtual Console, Nintendo essentially thinks they mean the DS]”.  I (unsurprisingly) disagree heartily with that sentiment.  My thing is, they announced DS support on Virtual Console.  Whatever that means is not relevant, as that information came out during Nintendo’s most recent meeting with their (unsurprisingly hostile) investors and Nintendo really, really has to keep their investors happy right about now, because by all accounts Wii U is really not selling well, and thankfully 3DS sales continue on apace.

Now, that does NOT excuse Nintendo from fulfilling a promise that they made last year about this time.  The promise was that Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Advance games were on their way to the Virtual Console.  I’ll put in my wishlist on what games I personally would like to see on the Virtual Console from each system announced so far in a separate post next week.

And this also does not excuse Nintendo from continuing to do what they do best and surprise and delight their fans and customers, and to finally make 2014 the Year of Universal User Accounts.  (Or the Year of Yoshi, whatever makes a better marketing slogan.)

So, will Nintendo finally do something right?  We’ll see.  Right now though, I’m playing some games, guys!  See you guys next time!