Wii U: Why White?

Since the Wii’s launch, it’s only been available in 3 colors: the standard white, a special edition red, and a sleek new black look. But Nintendo had plenty of color options to choose from when deciding on the standard color for the Wii U. So, that begs the question: why white?

Over the years, Nintendo’s consoles and handhelds have been a variety of colors. So, what is Nintendo’s fascination with white consoles recently? Miyamoto discussed the topic in a recent interview with Game Informer. Here’s a snippet of the discussion:

Based on my background as an industrial designer and Nintendo and my background in creating entertainment, I’ve always wanted to make greater use of color in our hardware. If you look back on things like the Famicom and the original Super Nintendo, they were a lot more colorful from a hardware perspective.

What we found over the years when we included a lot of different colors in our hardware is people would kind of point to that and use it to paint us as more kid-oriented. So really what we looked at is what are some ways from a design perspective that can make the system appeal to all ages One of the ways that we found to best do that is to minimize the use of color. In that process we asked if we’re going to do that, what’s the best way to go? We found that rather than going all black – all white seems to have a broader appeal to people.

I can see what he’s getting at. If you want to entice the hardcore gamers, you need to convince them that the system is not for children. This explains why Ninendo’s handhelds are more colorful(because they’re supposedly for kids), and why the Wii U and Wii U are white. I don’t know about white being a broader appeal though. I tend to favor the sleek black look of the PS3, black Wii, and black 3DS. But maybe that’s just me. How do you guys feel?