Nintendo is amping up its sales pitch for the struggling Wii U by focusing on its GamePad tablet-controller.
Once the biggest change in Nintendo’s strategy, the GamePad sold alongside the successor to the popular Wii video game console. It has now become a primary focus as the company attempts to turn around its business.
In a set of announcements at the E3 show on Tuesday, the Japanese game maker showed off a raft of games with new play styles it hopes will convince consumers the GamePad, and its accompanying Wii U console, are worth buying. The games include the ability to interact with real-world toys and rely heavily on the controller.
The effort is part of a larger strategy of making Nintendo’s flagship product more appealing. Right now, that means all of the company’s developers “are laser-focused on unlocking the potential of the GamePad,” said Casey Lewis, a spokesman for Nintendo.
Nintendo has reason to focus. The Wii U so far hasn’t seen its sales uptake as quickly as Microsoft’s Xbox One or Sony’s PlayStation 4, both of which were released in November, about a year after Nintendo’s product. The company’s financial results have taken a hit, with revenue falling 2 percent on a larger-than-expected loss in the last fiscal year.
Yves Guillemot, chief executive of game maker Ubisoft, said Nintendo was caught in tough circumstances. Chief among them was Apple’s iPad tablet, which arrived in the market two and a half years before the Wii U and its GamePad, and became popular among casual gamers. “The extraordinary innovation there was not seen as impactful as it could have been if it came earlier,” he said. Nintendo’s machine “is not as different as it could have been.”
Nintendo is hoping its new games will help to change those perceptions.
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http://www.cnet.com/news/for-nintendo-gamepad-this-retry-comes-with-a-toy-story/