Nintendo Attempts to Explain Wii U with Cringey New Ads

The Wii U isn't doing so well. Only last month, GameStop president Tony Bartel was saying that the system has sold at a “slower than expected” rate. The console lost one of its biggest exclusives – Rayman Legends – to other platforms (including, potentially, the Vita), and rumour has it Nintendo is handing out free dev kits to try to convince developers to come on board.

It's early days, but Nintendo clearly needs to drum up some interest for its new console, especially with the PlayStation 4 (and presumably the next Xbox) on the horizon. And so, we have some new adverts, thoroughly cringeworthy affairs the lot of them. You see, people just don't get what the Wii U does – Nintendo's focus on the GamePad has led some to think that it's just a new controller for the Wii – and so someone needs to explain things properly, but surely there's a better way than getting a kid to say, “It's much more different than the Wii. Way different.”

Here's the first advert, in which we get to see that kid's accompanying adult admit that he didn't realise how different the Wii U was, and suggest that – shock horror – people may not actually understand that until they've played it for themselves:

Here's the second, in which dad says he may even give up his other consoles for the sake of the Wii U:

And here's the third, in which the little girl lets us know that, “AND you can play with the Wii U GamePad,” and the dad suggests that playing video games turns adults into children.

If you didn't know about the Wii U, would these ads convince you?