Wii U

[Big Gulp]

So a new console launched last week, supposedly marking the start of the next gen, and the result on these boards is....  nothing?

Yeah.  Pretty sure Nintendo is headed rapidly towards being a software house.

[Merusk]

These boards hated the Wii after 6 months and weren't fond of it before that. They're the last place you need to look for anything about its successor.

[Big Gulp]

These boards hated the Wii after 6 months and weren't fond of it before that. They're the last place you need to look for anything about its successor.

True enough.  We're hardly representative of gaming at large, but you're telling me that out of how many frequent/infrequent posters that post on this board, no one has reported their impressions?  A console launch is a fairly large event in gaming, and for not one peep to have appeared on these forums in 3-4 days is pretty damning.

[Fabricated]

I didn't even know it launched until I got linked to the thing where someone accidentally got access to the Wii Universe admin thing.

[Rasix]

I think I could only name a couple posters still on the Nintendo bandwagon, (Margalis and Rendakor).  

For this board's demo, the Wii was pretty much a failure.  The other consoles had the games we talked about, the Wii had.. No More Heroes?  Xenoblade (which I assume a lot of didn't play due to mothballing our Wiis)?   Hell, even with my younger nephews, they pretty much stopped playing their Wii the second they got a 360.  

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that we're collectively about the games, not the gimmick.  Unless the WiiU delivers the games, it'll largely go ignored.

edit:  And I didn't even know it launched until I saw pictures on reddit of dads getting it for their kids.

[UnSub]

I liked Skylanders on the Wii, but I'm sure it wasn't much different from the other versions. Mario Kart was also fun.

However, the issue is (again) if Nintendo can get enough third party titles that people want to buy. If all you can get on the Wii U is yet more Mario, Zelda, Metroid and only the occasional third party title worth anything, then the Wii U is going to end up with the same problem that the Wii faced. Only it's likely to sell less because the casual interest in motion controls isn't there like it was with the Wii.

[Xanthippe]

No point in getting a Wii U until there's more software out.

Also, I'm unconvinced this is the next great thing in gaming, so unless it has an awesome game that makes it shine, I'm unlikely to get it. My kids are older now (my son finally sees the value in playing games on the pc, hurrah) and haven't been clamoring for it at all. I don't see much interesting there - yet at least.

[HaemishM]

Fuck Nintendo in its goddamn earhole.

I was a big-time Wii cheerleader. I bought the system on release. I still love some of the original games despite their obvious flaws (Red Steel). But it seemed like everything I bought the system for was a total letdown. The motion controls, instead of being a new innovation on control schemes, was a goddamn gimmick. Most of the 3rd party games just mapped their typical control schemes onto inaccurate swiping motions. I'd say maybe 5 of the games I played on the system actually had any sort of thought or innovation put into the controls. Most of the games were kiddie shovelware and stuff that belongs on a smartphone. Conduit was the last thing I played that I had any hope for, and it was boring as fuck. The 3rd party devs almost to a man gave not a fuck about making interesting games with the controls and it showed in the lazy ass games they made. I haven't even turned the goddamn thing on for more than Netflix in most of a year.

And now they want me to pay for a new console that finally has HD graphics and the only thing they added is a GODDAMN iPAD with a Wiimote strapped to either end?

Fuck them in their earholes.

[Ghambit]

Funny thing with the Wii is the innovation was actually in the controller, not in the console.    Really, the console was a step back tbh.
If we wanna look at the economics of it though, if it weren't for Nintendo a lot of mo-cap and aug. reality suites would be 10 times more expensive then they are now.  They really ramped up production of a lot of this stuff when the Wii came out, so now you can get similar components for a lot cheaper (gyros, accelerometers, etc.)

[Fabricated]

I hope they got some real good shit coming down the pipe because I doubt they're gonna have the massive explosion of people buying the system for a glorified game demo (wiisports) then never ever buying anything again like they did with the Wii.

[Malakili]

Although my wife liked the Wii for a while (co-op Mario Bros Wii, co-op Donkey Kong wii, etc), in the long run it has just become a glorified netflix box.  I just don't see myself ever buying a console again to be honest. I wouldn't have even bought a Wii if my wife hadn't been interested in one, and before that the last thing I had was a gamecube.  In other words, I've been a Nintendo man since I was a basically a baby, never owned an Xbox or 360, never owned any of the playstation systems, but I've had all the Nintendos (also was a Sega guy, but  ).  But even as someone who has a fair amount of Nintendo loyalty, I just have no interest in this thing.

[Tale]

Apart from the Wii Universe admin story, apparently there's also a 5gb firmware patch download before a new system will even work. Interrupt the patch and it bricks itself. Mass market consumer ahoy.

I didn't even know it launched until I got linked to the thing where someone accidentally got access to the Wii Universe admin thing.

[Rendakor]

I'm on the Nintendo bandwagon?  I'm an admitted 3DS fan but I haven't owned a Wii in years; I had to borrow a friend's just to play Xenoblade.

Regarding the Wii U, Nintendo seems to have failed pretty hard at marketing the system. I've had several hardcore gamer friends ask me for the first time this weekend, "Dude, what's the Wii U?" People I talked to that have heard of it usually think it's a handheld, and/or assume there's no way that a Nintendo system could match the PS3/360 in terms of performance. This is all Nintendo's fault, for showing off mostly Nintendoland and Mario and not any of the more serious third party launch titles (COD, AC3, Batman, ME3). Furthermore, by not giving a launch date at E3 (when everyone was paying attention) and instead announcing it at some private conference, they failed to build anticipation because no one thought it was going to launch this year since the PS4/Xbox720 are probably still two years away. Bottom line is that Nintendo hasn't been the console of choice for hardcore gamers since the SNES, and if they want to get that demographic back they're going to have to work for it (and none of their marketing efforts so far have had success in that direction).

Personally, none of the launch titles really interest me; I'm not big on minigame fests and I'm sort bored of Mario. However, Bayonetta 2 and the new Monster Hunter are both supposed to be Wii U exclusives, so when either of those come out I'll probably have to pick one up.

Also, there are reports (This thread on gamefaqs, MovieBob's twitter, and this YouTube video) of a blue flash of death, with some systems DOA. I really hope for Nintendo's sake that this isn't as common as the RROD; the last thing they need is a catastrophic hardware failure. None of the major gaming news sites seems to have picked it up yet, but expect to hear BFOD or BLOD a lot in the next few months.

[Rasix]

I'm on the Nintendo bandwagon?  I'm an admitted 3DS fan but I haven't owned a Wii in years; I had to borrow a friend's just to play Xenoblade.

Hey, I was struggling to think of people who even still talk about Nintendo games/systems.    Didn't want to just single out Margalis.

[MrHat]

I'm with Rendakor in that there's some software that may be coming that should be fun.

The biggest thing that interested me was that it wirelessly transmits the video signal from the box to the Remotes, which I thought was cool.

I'm not sure I need another way to watch Netflix though.

[jakonovski]

I hear zombi u is really good and borrows liberaölly from dark souls, but that's pretty much it. Time will tell if it's worth getting.

[Mrbloodworth]

I normally have to get a WII, due to any Zelda games that come out. Not for me, but my Significant other. She will likely LOVE the portability of that controller. Our entertainment system backs up to our bedroom wall, so i foresee her playing in the room a lot.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Hearing that Bayonetta 2 will be a nintendo exclusive makes me remarkably sad.  I doubt it will be even a shadow of the over-the-top nature of the first due to the console.

[Mrbloodworth]

Why would the console be a limit at this point? Its got more ( faster ) ram than an Xbox 360. X360 has 512 ddr2, ponder that.

[Druzil]

Wow, if Bayonetta 2 is really a Wii U exclusive, that really makes me sad.

The Wii online experience was just a total failure for me.  The Nintendo Store doesn't even hold water compared to Xbox Live or the PSN.  Adding friends with an random long code was obnoxious, not that there was any way to interact once you did.  For a game like Super Mario Bros Wii to launch without online multi-player just solidified that they were out of touch with what I wanted in a game console anymore.

[Trippy]

So a new console launched last week, supposedly marking the start of the next gen, and the result on these boards is....  nothing?

Yeah.  Pretty sure Nintendo is headed rapidly towards being a software house.

The Wii U is not a next gen console -- the guts are only slightly better spec'd than an Xbox 360 (mostly cause of the extra RAM). So finally Nintendo owners will get real ports of the major titles (Call of Duty, Batman, Assassin's Creed, etc.). Yea. Of course next year the next Xbox will be coming out and a new Playstation presumably the year after so Nintendo will once again be behind the others. The Wii was able to flourish for a while even with its gimpy internals thanks to the game-changing motion controllers and casual-friendly games. The Wii U GamPad, however, is not a game charger like the Wii Remote was -- it's a supplemental device. Yeah it might eventually* be the best TV remote you can get but that makes for a very expensive TV remote. Nintendo also fucked up the button placement on its controllers putting them *below* the stick on the right side, fucking up the muscle memory of all the serious gamers out there.

* TVii and a bunch of other promised features have not be released yet

[Mrbloodworth]

Price point also helped a lot.  As for the new unit, WII U supports a Blu-ray like disk drive, 25gb of storage. And a Multicore processor. Its also DX11 capable.

Not sure what your criteria for next gen is there Trippy.

[Trippy]

Yes, and the Wii U doesn't have that advantage anymore (presumably the GamePad is expensive to manufacturer).

[Lakov_Sanite]

Why would the console be a limit at this point? Its got more ( faster ) ram than an Xbox 360. X360 has 512 ddr2, ponder that.

Oh it's not a graphics issue but the fact that it will almost certainly be a more toned down game in terms of content.

[Mrbloodworth]

Why would the console be a limit at this point? Its got more ( faster ) ram than an Xbox 360. X360 has 512 ddr2, ponder that.

Oh it's not a graphics issue but the fact that it will almost certainly be a more toned down game in terms of content.

Eh?  CoD, Resident Evil, Scarface, Bully, Man hunt, house of the dead, Dead Rising.... All on the WII.  Bayonetta's High heals and juggs are surely at risk.

[Mrbloodworth]

Yes, and the Wii U doesn't have that advantage anymore (presumably the GamePad is expensive to manufacturer).

I'm not sure its just the game pad, but yes, now its 300$. But, in many aspects, you get more with this console then last gen. More power, more flexibility, higher render standards and a fancy controller.

[Trippy]

Yes, unlike the Wii where Nintendo was making money on the hardware right from the beginning (that's how gimpy it was), they are losing money on the Wii U itself. So Nintendo definitely packed in the hardware features this time around (the lack of sufficient internal storage not withstanding).

[Trippy]

Price point also helped a lot.  As for the new unit, WII U supports a Blu-ray like disk drive, 25gb of storage. And a Multicore processor. Its also DX11 capable.

Not sure what your criteria for next gen is there Trippy.

The Wii U has a more powerful GPU (precise specs unknown at this point) but its CPU is about the same if not actually less powerful than its counterparts, and it has more RAM as previously mentioned. The true next gen consoles (next Xbox, next PlayStation) are likely to be significantly more powerful than the Wii U. That's why I don't consider it a "next gen" console but a "current gen" one.

[Margalis]

So a new console launched last week, supposedly marking the start of the next gen, and the result on these boards is....  nothing?

Yeah.  Pretty sure Nintendo is headed rapidly towards being a software house.

I have one but why bother posting about it? I don't think people here are terribly interested.

Plus I really want to clear my backlog of Gamecube games (lol) before I start using it seriously.

Oh it's not a graphics issue but the fact that it will almost certainly be a more toned down game in terms of content.

Nintendo stopped toning down content in the SNES or N64 days.

Last gen I had a 360 and a Wii, but in retrospect I should have had a PS3 and Wii instead. Those two systems give me coverage of basically every game I want to play. I can't think of a single game that is exclusive to 360 that I cared about at all. I feel like in some ways if you only owned 1 console 360 would be the best, but if you owned two 360 would the worst.

I know the Wii U is going to have games I want to play and it's not particularly expensive. Also I can play a console quality game while lying in bed which is pretty cool. The quality or number of third party ports is not really relevant to me. I owned a Wii for Nintendo games and for games like No More Heroes, Sin and Punishment, etc, not for Call of Duty ports or whatever.

As far as the Wii U goes, the pad is great, playing console games on a pad around the house is cool enough that some games feel better played on the pad even when I'm in front of the TV. It's not an iPad with buttons because iPad games are hot garbage. In terms of tech the Wii U pad tech itself is pretty novel, the rest of the system is PS3 / 360 ballpark in terms of visuals and performance. MiiVerse is a cool and I'm sure either MS or Sony is scrambling to steal it. (Live message board of text and drawings from users that you can access in game and that can be integrated into games kind of like the messages in Dark Souls)

In the end it's basically a 360/PS3 with a different library and a controller with a touchscreen that can play full games off of the TV.

[Margalis]

The PS4/720 are going to be a lot more powerful, but there's always a more powerful system coming at some point so it's difficult for me to get worked up about that. The Wii U is not really "next gen" other than the pad streaming tech, it's current gen-ish with a twist. But I've really soured on "AAA" games that appeal to the lowest common denominator with safe design decisions, QTEs, auto-platforming, special vision modes that tell you exactly what to do, etc, so the prospect of games that look even prettier and are even more brain-dead and conservative doesn't excite me.

Edit: Zombi U is a good example of this. I don't think it would be made for Xbox 720, the budget required to appear competitive would also require the game design to change. It's a zombie game where fighting zombies is the least interesting part of the game.

[Lantyssa]

I didn't even know it launched until I got linked to the thing where someone accidentally got access to the Wii Universe admin thing.

I didn't even know that it was part of a new console.

[Kageru]

They had something actually novel for the wii, and got lucky and attracted mass-market interest. I get no sense this is likely to happen again, so only the nintendo niche are likely to care.

[Riggswolfe]

I got burned on the Wii. Most of the games on it were shitty and if it wasn't for wii-sports and wii-fit I probably would never turn it on again and just pawn it.

That alone is enough reason for me to pass on the Wii U. Sure, I'll miss the latest Zelda which is a franchise I still love but I can live with that. I bought all 3 consoles this Gen and while the Wii was the cheapest it was also the one I felt I wasted my money on.

[Xanthippe]

Our Wii hardly ever gets played. My son prefers the older Nintendos (N64 is his favorite, I think, and he likes the Super Nintendo too) over the Wii. He tends to play XBox 360 more though. (He's now 16).

My favorite console is the PS3 but I don't play it that much. Still would rather play on a pc.

[Yegolev]

For various reasons this is a wait.  Smells like Nintendo wanted it out for 2012 holidays but it's not ready, and I'm not playing that game now that I have three stable consoles.  There are exclusives that are going to force us to get one, but I'm hoping that the oddities associated with finding and purchasing one will have simmered down.  Also I'm really hoping to get one that works right out of the box.