If you’re a PC, PS3, or Xbox 360 owner it’s pretty easy to transfer accounts from one system to the next. All you have to do is sign up, whether it’s through Steam, the Xbox Marketplace, or the PSN Store, and you’ll be able to access all of your achievements you’ve earned, even if you can’t get your old save file. Nintendo, however, doesn’t have a system like that for the Wii U, and it’s made people nervous.
According to Nintendo of America, however, there is a process that exists for transferring your old user ID from an old, broken console to a shiny brand new one. All you have to do is ship your old Wii U to Nintendo and the profile will end up transferred on to your new, replacement system. To me, that sounds like the most convoluted and unnecessarily complex system that they can do.
After all, Sony and Microsoft have regular old accounts, with usernames, where you just log in. Why is it that Nintendo feels like you have to be tied to a specific console, with no easy way to transfer your stuff over to a new console? It’s this kind of crap that makes me think Nintendo is going to end up out of business here in the next decade or so. It isn’t about the out-of-date hardware at launch on their last couple of systems, or even the kiddy image that the company has fostered since the early 90’s, but the fact that Nintendo feels the need to force upon “improvement” to the online experience with things like friend codes and Nintendo Network IDs. Nintendo is trying to reinvent the wheel, and quite frankly they are failing at it.