Comment by CM30 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by CM30 | Hacker News Reader

Seems like a useful list of things to avoid when running a startup, plus situations where it may not always be a bad thing.

Still, got a few thoughts here:

> if you build it, they will come

This feels like the cause for so many news/media bundling services, akin to Blendle. Loads of people seem to have the thought process "no-one pays for journalism, that's because it's too inconvenient to subscribe seperately, let's bundle it all", but far fewer people actually seem to want such a service.

> Chasing Blue Oceans

This feels like the explanation for the Wii U, despite Nintendo obviously not being a startup of any kind. The Wii was a blue ocean product, and the company clearly thought the same logic could apply to its successor too. Find an idea that didn't have much competition (using a portable screen to control what's going on elsewhere), and use that to attract a new market.

Unfortunately, while the concept worked on a handheld device, it didn't really feel good to use on a larger scale, and the ideas designed for it (usually some sort of asymmetric gameplay experience) just didn't have the appeal that more traditional ones did.

> Boiling the Ocean

This seems really common with crowdfunded products, since if their scope isn't unrealistic as hell beforehand (and if it wants the public's attention and money, it usually is), it certainly is once the stretch goals start being added and the creators start promising everything and the kitchen sink.

Also with video games, as shown by Duke Nukem Forever, Beyond Good & Evil 2, etc.

> This feels like the explanation for the Wii U, despite Nintendo obviously not being a startup of any kind.

This is a particularly interesting example, because they followed up with the Switch, which is, in some ways, the diametric opposite of the Wii U. Arguably, what happened was that they had the right idea that the hybrid TV/handheld format was the right blue ocean play, but the Wii U failed by being TV first and handheld second, instead of handheld first and TV second. You could probably build a whole business strategy course on just this discussion.

That's very true, the Switch feels like an improvement on the Wii U concept in many ways.

Though I feel the other big difference is that the Wii U Gamepad was highly limited in its capabilities. You could play games on it while other people watched TV or used that TV for something else, but you couldn't go beyond that. You still had to be close to the TV for it to function, and that usually meant being in the same room.

The Switch being a hybrid console meant you could take the whole thing outside of the room if others needed the space, or bring it with you to events or places outside of the home. So, it solved all the same problems the Wii U did (playing while others used the TV), but also a ton of more pressing ones (taking the game with you while traveling/leaving the house, playing in other rooms/areas, etc).

I have a Switch 2, Nintendo user since I was very young, with the 8 bits NES, SNES, Game Boy, Nintendo 64... I would not change my Switch 2 for any PS5 or XBox, even if they are interesting :)

It is indeed a hybrid, but a very well-thought one I'd say.

I once played mario kart with the stranger sitting next to me on a plane with the switch.

I don't think that's the real cause for the Wii U's woes. Consoles from the big players are almost automatic buys for a lot of people, just to get access to the new games. They have to screw up to change that. No one was particularly bothered by what the Wii U offered, even though it wasn't really compelling.

I hold that the Wii U was primarily an advertising problem, with a dash of the Wii itself being an anomaly.

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