Could Nintendo Land be a sleeper hit?

Nintendo Land is crazy amounts of fun. I mean, really. Playing it with friends is something that's only really matched by a good set of Super Smash Bros. Brawl or Melee bouts. Playing it alone is akin to playing a well-varied minigame collection that challenges and entertains (Yoshi's Fruit Cart is one of the toughest games I've played in a while - despite its simplicity). So why didn't this game catapult the Wii U into every video game-playing household the world over? Because Nintendo made choosing the games included in Nintendo Land a game in and of itself.

This frame game acts as a screen that effectively keeps casual gamers out. This analysis isn't anything new; it's been part of the consensus on why Nintendo Land failed to repeat Wii Sports' success since the console was off to a sluggish start a little over a year ago. But, with only a few exceptions (Metroid Blast and Battle Quest), Nintendo Land's games are pretty straightforward. Even those that use the GamePad and its innovations nearly exclusively, like Yoshi's Fruit Cart or Balloon Trip, have tutorials that could make even the greenest of gamers roll their eyes.

So the apparent failure of Nintendo Land is disappointing. But, much of the blame for this falls on Nintendo's aged shoulders. Since the console launched a year ago, advertisement has been scarce. Among those ads that were put out for the Wii U, I don't recall a single one that featured Nintendo Land.

Also, since launch, little effort was put into explaining even the simplest functions of the GamePad - being a drawing pad, working as a ninja star-launcher, serving as the controller for a game's breezes. Given the broad array of things that the GamePad is used for even in Nintendo Land, a tagline like "The controller that lets you see what you control" would have been better than the nothing Nintendo put forth.

Mind, all of this is coming from someone who is just picking up the Wii U now, over a year after its release back in November of 2012. What was done was done. Now, all that's to be said is that Nintendo Land is a fun game, and if you're at all familiar with how video games work you should give it a try (provided you've already got a Wii U, of course).