I've been a fan of Nintendo since the NES and video games in general since the first electronic tennis machine. Nintendo, unlike every other hardware creator excluding Sega, has built their success on a plethora of outstanding intellectual properties. These IPs serve as a testament to great gaming outshining less than outstanding consoles.
After the less than stellar success of the Game Cube, Nintendo struck gold with the Wii. It's simple to understand why: it was an all-in-one package toy for $250. The Wii included Wii Sports and this made the system ready-to-go out of box with minimal hidden costs (such as a second Wii Wand and Nunchuck controller). People, not just gamers, purchased the system as an entertainment package, not a gaming system. This means Nintendo sold a lot of Wii systems but additional non-Nintendo software struggled.
Unfortunately this trend only worsened on the Wii-U. It's no secret the system has been ignored largely by both the hard core and casual gaming players. Why? I think there are two primary reasons:
1) Forced "motion controls" turn away the hard core gamer. Nintendo forces motion controls into games that shouldn't require it and provides no option to switch to more "standard" controls. Tennis? Sure, swinging the remote like a racket fit, but in longer games with deeper gameplay such as The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, gesturing the Wii remote to use the sword attack instead of pressing a button becomes not only tedious but tiring since play sessions tend to be a lot longer. Nintendo needs to open up and allow people to play the games how they prefer, not force awkward controls that ultimately alienate their traditional hardcore fans.
2) Additional hardware and no "real" controllers for $50 more than the original Wii! Sure the Wii sold a lot of units and one can assume there are a lot of Wii remotes in households across America. But selling a game system with no included game, a "tablet" that only functions within 30' of the Wii U and no controllers, this is a hard sell. Sure, now you can find bundled-in games as Nintendo desperately tries to get their systems sold through the holidays but the perceived value is still just too little. The casual consumer doesn't see the value of a "tablet controller" or they simply view it as "complicated" and this alienates the audience who flocked to the simplicity of the Wii.
I think Nintendo is struggling too hard to focus on their hardware when they should be focusing on their vast library of games for the past 25+ years. What I would do, if I were empowered with such decision making abilities at Nintendo, is begin working immediately on structuring a monthly pay service that would give all subscribers unlimited access to every Nintendo game created for all systems through the Wii U. With a price point in the $10-20 a month range, the Wii-U would now have significant value. The games would feature "original" controls and Wii games that "forced" motion controls clunkily (Zelda) would allow an alternate "gamepad" configuration. But this subscription wouldn't just be for old games. This would allow Nintendo to release games to their audience for "free" as they're released! With each new game, the monthly subscription would continue to grow in value!
Now, with such a system in place, it'd be very simple to upgrade hardware. One of the best features of new game systems is backwards compatibility. This allows buyers to invest in new hardware with the safety net of their current game library keeping them occupied as the trickle of new games come in for the new system. If Nintendo adopted this monthly subscription model, the user's profile would be logged into the new hardware and instantly plays everything it did before, but now with new software coming out to take advantage of the new hardware! It'd make upgrading systems painless and fun!
It's easy to get excited for this concept and I've not even gone into the possibility of adding leaderboards and gamer profile comparisons for all games supported! Playing Ocarina of Time with an online leaderboard for completion and quickest playthrough would breathe new life into what is already a near-perfect game experience!
Well, there's my two cents. A subscription model that'd make dollars. Lots of them.
