With the recent announcement of the PS4 price dropping from $399.99 to $349.99, and a plethora of new Xbox One bundles coming out this holiday season, this puts the Wii U in a really bad situation. Even though the Wii U’s sales have been extremely lackluster over the years, the console normally manages to pull in some decent numbers during the holiday season. However, seeing as this time around the Wii U will only be fifty dollars cheaper than its competitors (and this isn’t even accounting for pre-owned), the question needs to be asked, “What can be done for the Wii U to shine this holiday season?” Granted while The Legend of Zelda and Star Fox both got delayed into 2016, the Wii U is missing some upcoming big hits. But this doesn’t mean nothing can do be done about it.

5. Stop Store Exclusive Bundles

What I find about as dumb as store exclusive Amiibos in the states is the idea of store exclusive Wii U bundles. Right now the current bundles available for Wii U are the Super Mario 3D World Bundle, Mario Kart 8 Bundle, Splatoon Bundle, and the Super Mario Maker bundle. Two of Nintendo’s hottest games this year, Splatoon and Super Mario Maker, both got bundles but both games can only be bought at Best Buy and Wal Mart respectively. My question is: why? Why not have these bundles in as many retail stores as possible? Why only give GameStop, Target, Toys R Us and others the 3D World and Mario Kart 8 bundle while your two hottest new games can only be bundled in stores people may not have around them. Having the ability to pick up a Wii U with one of your hottest new games of 2015 at any retail outlet that sells systems would be a major help for consumers to pick what they want.

4. More Bundles

Now, keeping the trend with bundles, I feel like Nintendo should offer more Wii U bundles this holiday season.  Give the consumer an option to pick what kind of games they want with their Wii U and it will go a long way. There are many games for Wii U that deserved to be bundled with the system. Make a bundle for Super Smash Bros for Wii U, make one for Xenoblade Chronicles X that includes all of the collector’s edition stuff, bring back the Wind Waker HD bundle, heck go as far to bundle it with Lego City Undercover. Give the consumers a better range of things to pick from for their first game on the system. Something as simple as a Lego City bundle will go a long way with parents who have children who are obsessed with Lego’s and probably never knew the game was a thing due to its exclusivity on Wii U.

3. Wii U Nintendo Selects

There are a lot of Wii U games that Wii U owners did not get a chance to play due to the scarcity of the stock, and with the Wii U only coming with 32GB a lot of people don’t want to buy games digitally either *cough* Fatal Frame V *cough*. So Nintendo should go about releasing second print editions of games like Pikmin 3, Lego City, The Wonderful 101, Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze, Wind Waker HD and others, and advertise them as part of the Nintendo Selects program for the Wii U.

2. Price Cut

At one point in time the Wii U was able to boast it was $150 and $100 cheaper than its competitors, however after the several price cuts the Xbox One received, and the recent PS4 price cut, the Wii U only can say its $50 cheaper than its rivals. The Wii U will need to be priced aggressively if they hope to sway people into buying one of their systems. I have talked to many people who would want to buy a Wii U, but due to its lack of third party support they can’t justify buying it for $300 when they can pick up a pre-owned PS4 and Xbox One for $339.99 and $319.99 respectively. Adjusting the systems price to $249.99, or even as low as $199.99 may be the systems best, if not only, way to stay competitive against the XBO and PS4. If a customer sees they can get a Wii U bundled with a copy of Super Mario Maker, and can pick up 2-4 more extra games with it for the same price of the PS4 and XBO people will quickly jump on that.

1. System Advertisement

The most important thing Nintendo needs to do is advertise. They have recently been doing a good job advertising their games leading to the commercial success of Splatoon and Super Mario Maker, however I feel like Nintendo needs to work that same magic on the system itself. The launch ads for the Wii U were abysmal, and let’s try not to remember the “Pitch” ads. I feel like Nintendo needs to advertise the home console itself hard this year in the same ways it did with Super Mario Maker, Mario Kart and Splatoon. I guarantee you everyone will be seeing ad after ad promoting the PS4 and XBO by itself over the next coming months. So Nintendo needs to jump on that themselves.

In short, if Nintendo does even a few of these things it could go a long way in helping with the Wii U this holiday season in bringing in new adapters for the system. Now will Nintendo do any of these? I am going to doubt it, but to do nothing may not be the best bet this holiday season if their system fails to even hit half a million units while the PS4 and XBO wrack up into the millions. But we will just have to wait and see what crafty things Nintendo will have up their sleeves in the coming months. A Nintendo Direct could easily soothe all our worries.