Is there room for the Wii U in this gen?

[The Laird]

Yeah, most games don't require anything more than a little wrist movement.

The Wii was awesome for FPSs, I found the Wiimote better than dual analog.

^^^ THIS!!!!

[gman72]

Well I'm playing through the mighty Metroid Prime on WiiU right now and after a few minutes of getting used the controls it feels perfectly natural.

[Lost Dragon]

Tad off topic, but talk of motion controls feeling natural or not..

Was'nt there a Castlevania arcade game a while bck where you sat in a cabinet and game tracked your wrist movements or something? supposed to have worked ok as a control method, would have thought Wii or Wii U would have made ideal home for a conversion.

Update:found it:

http://www.google.com/url?q=http://kota ... InMpH-iF3Q

[RetroBob]

Wii U is my only current gen console for now and I like it, never realised how much I would appreciate off screen play but then my GF moved in so it helped with me conceding use of the TV some of the time.

[greenberet79]

Of course there is, it's a major consolse by a major company and it has and will get more major games.

FIFA's been sh** for about 12 years now anyway so who needs it.

[ALK]

There has to be. If they leave the hardware business, then its goodbye to console exclusives, as the Playstation and XBox libraries look too similar to me with few good exclusives under each hat, where's something like the SNES and MD had tons more exclusives each. Yeah I know these days companies want to release their games on everything to make more money but it is, there's much more that interests me in the Wii U library even on day one then there is on the PS4 and XBONE combined (Dead Rising 3, but I'd never buy a whole console just for it).

[outdated_gamer]

Why not? The system is out for about a year now and it sold over 4 million units worldwide. Granted, that's not much compared to Wii sales but I assume the system will see a GameCube-like success and I think it'll be worth for Nintendo to keep supporting it since they mostly get their profits from the software sales. Dropping support or releasing a successor this soon would have been a bad idea anyway. The only issue could be the pressure from the investors who want Nintendo to make games for other systems (mainly portables), but those people also aren't interested into gaming and only want quick profits. What the system needs is, imo, as much attactive exclusives as possible that are either built "ground-up" for the system or enhanced versions of older games, since the system is not good for "watered-down" ports from more capable systems. And they do seem to be doing just that, i.e. bringing it as much attractive exclusives as they can. I just think people need to stop viewing it as a direct competitor to PlayStation and Xbox and rather see it as a unique system of it's own. Although it does seem that it doesn't quite have the "family appeal" of it's predecessor and is viewed as a more "traditional" console, regardless of it's un-usual controller, so Nintendo will probably drop the Wii-brand and make something entirely new in the future. It would also correspond with their "console eras" (i.e. the NES & SNES being "2D era", N64 & NGC being "3D era", Wii & Wii U the "motion-control era" - is "VR era" the next step?).

[Misery]

It would be much first choice if it had a proper controller. The Wii sold really well but I bet the majority just gathered dust after the gimmick wore off, so people aren't interested in repeating it

So many people talk about the amount of Wiis 'gathering dust' in attics, but I've never seen one piece of actual statistical data to back it up. Ever.

The data I have seen suggests a software attach rate impressivley close to that of the 360 and PS3, and the fact that games like NSMB were being released a couple of years into the machines life and shifting tens of millions of copies suggests that most people didn't in fact play Wii Sports for 10 minutes and then shove the thing in the loft and forget about it.

What I suspect is happening here is that people are thinking 'I lost interest in mine after a week, so I can only assume that everyone else who bought one did as well'. Which is terrible reasoning.

This one depends on your point of view.

In my case, I was in an excellent position to just WATCH it happen for quite some time. Worked at a gaming store, had alot of regular customers there, and one thing I remember was that it was really, REALLY easy to sell people a Wii, as well as that accursed party game that I cannot remember the name of, and the Wii Fit board, but other than that..... let's just say the actual games were a DIFFICULT sale. People just didnt care much, past Wii Sports and those couple of others, and the occaisional rare first-party title, whenever Nintendo bothered to put one out. Many of them, when given the suggestion of buying things for it, claimed that "Oh, we just got it for Wii Sports" or "nah, I dont really use it any more, it's just party games and kid's stuff". The consoles themselves and those few specific things kept selling. Selling games on the OTHER consoles was a simple task, by comparison.

It's true that people would buy those first party exclusives though, but the whole problem was that those were the ONLY things they'd buy. They'd beat those in a week, and back the thing went onto it's shelf. This one happened with every single person I know, too. Not one of them ever uses theirs unless specific first-party games come out..... at this point, the thing being at the end of it's days, it seems to have been removed entirely from most of their rooms and whatnot. And of course my own Wii met it's extremely obvious fate as well.


Still, it's interesting to see what happens with the Wii U... I'd thought the thing had potential, but it doesnt seem to be reaching it much, and supposedly isnt selling very well. I keep wondering if Nintendo really knows what to do with it, or how to market it at all.

The question is, where will it go from here? It's been off to a rocky start, or so it seems, and now here come the other two... should be interesting/amusing, at any rate.

[sirpigmeat]

The wii has been the only Nintendo console i've ever owned that's sat un-played for more than a couple of weeks. I actually put it away for awhile. I actually went and bought an Xbox 360, because I felt jealous looking at some of the games coming out on it... Don't get me wrong theirs some awesome stuff on it, xenoblade, skyward sword, mario galaxy, fire emblem... but I got most use outta it after I hacked it and stuck a bunch of emulators on there...

The wiiU seems to have completely revitalized my Nintendo love though (along with the 3DS)... I seem to want to get every Nintendo product I can get my hands on at the moment and I'm loving it. I haven't felt this enthused about modern gaming in a long while! Alot of pundits have said this has been the year of the 3DS, I think next year will be the year of the wiiU! And i'll eat my Mario cap if i'm wrong!

[kelp7]

The wiiU seems to have completely revitalized my Nintendo love though (along with the 3DS)... I seem to want to get every Nintendo product I can get my hands on at the moment and I'm loving it. I haven't felt this enthused about modern gaming in a long while!

Could just be that you've deprived yourself for long enough of the Nintendo stuff that you've just renewed your enthusiasm for it again.

I've never owned a console before getting a Wii when it was released but it (and now the Wii U which I've had for a good number of months) have never 'sat unplayed' at all! There are so many excellent games, plenty with re-play value. But then my other half and I play a lot of stuff together etc and she's a big Nintendo fan so maybe that helps! I don't really have any enthusiasm for the other consoles...

[The Laird]

Why not? The system is out for about a year now and it sold over 4 million units worldwide.

Just to put that in context, it hasn't outsold the Atari 7800 yet.

[r0jaws]

To put that in context, the Atari Jaguar apparently sold less than 250'000 units in three years.

[sirpigmeat]

The wiiU seems to have completely revitalized my Nintendo love though (along with the 3DS)... I seem to want to get every Nintendo product I can get my hands on at the moment and I'm loving it. I haven't felt this enthused about modern gaming in a long while!

Could just be that you've deprived yourself for long enough of the Nintendo stuff that you've just renewed your enthusiasm for it again.

I've never owned a console before getting a Wii when it was released but it (and now the Wii U which I've had for a good number of months) have never 'sat unplayed' at all! There are so many excellent games, plenty with re-play value. But then my other half and I play a lot of stuff together etc and she's a big Nintendo fan so maybe that helps! I don't really have any enthusiasm for the other consoles...

I think actually Nintendo didn't put a foot wrong gamewise with the wii, it just didn't have some of those odd 3rd party titles that made other Nintendo consoles special. The N64 had rare, so you got Golden Eye, Jet Force Gemini (wish someone would HD remake this), odd titles like Body Harvest etc. The Gamecube had stuff like Eternal Darkness, Killer 7, Vietiful Joe etc. ... Stuff that kept the console in use while you waited for the next nintendo game...
To be fair my Xbox360 didn't fair much better, most of the games that looked so great weren't much cop, or got dry real fast... I haven't played it since I got bored of skyrim a few months back...

[The Laird]

To put that in context, the Atari Jaguar apparently sold less than 250'000 units in three years.

And? I don't see your point

Not that it matters or has anything to do with this but Atari historian Curt Vendel told me it was actually 325,000 (taken from official docs).

[Lost Dragon]

To put it in further context (and get thread back onto the Wii U, not past Atari hardware), Wii U has'nt yet been discontinued (and nor do i think it will be any time soon), so no need to compare it's lifetime sales...just yet.