WiiU Owner's Thread (1 Viewer)

Sure, there is an XBOX One and a PS4 thread.. and I'm busy making time on my PS4.. but the two best games this winter might end up being on the WiiU.

Super Mario 3D is.. well, awesome.
http://www.ign.com/videos/2013/11/19/super-mario-3d-world-video-review



And the new Legend of Zelda: A Link between Worlds becomes one of the highest metacritic rated games of the year.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/11/14/the-legend-of-zelda-a-link-between-worlds-review

I had a brief shot to play some of Super Mario 3D today.. damn, a complete blast.

I think sometimes we get tied up in the hardware and we forget that a good game isn't always about the hardware.. a good game is from great design. Super Mario 3D is near the top of my 'Thanksgiving Play' list.

I'm getting the Zelda 3DX XL this weekend, been considering moving my WiiU to the bedroom so I can play on the gamepad while still in bed. Might hafta do that with these two games coming out and with the good sound sytem hooked up. Haven't played the system since 3 weeks after launch...Still pisses me off that their dumb ass digital store ties games to the box and not to the account. I would buy a lot more Nintendo games as soon as that happens. I'm not holding my breath, they announced major improvements coming but THIS IS NOT ONE OF THEM, wtfbbq.http://www.joystiq.com/2013/11/13/upcoming-nintendo-3ds-wii-u-system-update-will-combine-eshop-ac/

The system-tied thing is silly, but I buy mostly hard-copy games because they can be found on sale more frequently.

I recently finished the trifecta of PIkmin 3, Rayman Origins, and Wonderful 101. I am putting off Mario for a bit and have no idea when I can get Zelda, which sucks because both look amazing but I have too much of a backlog (made worse by my recent PS4 purchase).

I love my Wii U but Nintendo needs to turn that 'U' into 'Nintendo Universe' and get every non-Wii/Wii U game on their digital store ASAP. If they marketed this console as the Ultimate Nintendo gaming system then it would sell much better.

Super Mario 3D World is #1 on my list of post-holiday purchases. This game looks rock solid. The only thing about it that I haven't read too much about is how the single player is. All the reviews talk about the multi-player greatness, but I'm a solo player, and not looking for a party game.

I'm not going to buy prior, simply because I bought Link Between Worlds and I assume that will tie up my time.

The multiplayer IS the single player mode, just with more people playing all at once. I've read that its all around phenomenal, except very much feels like a "greatest hits" instead of a brand new experience in some ways.

WiiU IP detailed for Christmas..

With most PS4 and XBOX1 games not hitting until Q1 of 2014, some of the best games this Christmas may be on the WiiU

I have no idea what that first line means Matt. But yes, some good games on both systems. I never got into Zelda and am enjoying ALTTP right now.

I ended up buying Super Mario 3D World after all, as I needed it for a Store display this holiday. It's really fun. It's pretty much the 3D evolution of New Super Mario Bros, with similar level layouts, and the multi-player being similar, but I think overall, I preferred the Mario Galaxy series.

The bear view:http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/12/wii-u-sales/

That was an interesting read. Thanks, Sam.

You bet

I agree that price is an issue with the Wii U. The bundles that include a new game and the 32 GB console for $300 are a good deal, but would have gone further a year ago. $350 for the same bundle with NintendoLand instead was...okay, at most. The console is definitely worth owning, but they have priced themselves out a bit.

I had been having similar thoughts regarding how often they make Mario games now. Additionally, there's a fine line between a 2D Mario being "old-school" and being "not worth the purchase of a $300 machine to play" in consumer eyes. True gamers will appreciate a great game, regardless of the style, but the rest of the general public will see a 2D game and wonder where the 3D game is. Enter Mario 3D World, which the article pointed out is the 4th Mario game in 2 years (actually, its arguably the 3rd Wii U Mario game in the last year, if you count Luigi U).

They desperately need Smash Bros., Mario Kart, and Zelda. Those 3 franchises alone could sell a console. Mario games are some of the best out there but they don't have the appeal they did 10/15/20 years ago, sadly. People see Mario and they want to play it, but they don't want to spend a few hundred dollars to play it.

I certainly can't disagree with the idea of losing the Gamepad, if possible. I got the Classic controller, and it's the primary one I use, unless I have to do something else. The Gamepad is kinda heavy (for a controller) and usually the touch screen doesn't integrate into the games nearly as well as I think it should.

I kinda think they should have done more development time, and developed a truly independent portable game console as well as a next gen console that worked seamlessly together but weren't in fact interdependent. They may have been better off following the competition by about a year instead of leading by about a year.

I do agree with the article in terms of Nintendo's done this before, and if anyone can make it work, they will. I have confidence in the system, as it's the only one of the New 3 that I bought.

The 3DS is strong enough as a platform that making a sort of portable Wii U would have been cannibalizing their own profits. The better option would be for the GamePad to be sold as an accessory that enhances games but isn't absolutely essential to them. Unfortunately, the history of peripherals in gaming shows that not including something in the box or from the very beginning means it won't get supported very well (in quality or quantity) so here we are.Whatever. I like the GamePad. I pretty much only play exclusive games (or games made for the Wii U in mind, like Rayman Legends) and it either makes the experience better or at the very least lets me take it off my TV. Using my PS Vita to get the same on my PS4 is great, but Nintendo did it first and arguably does it best.

EDIT: Also, to get a portable that is as powerful as the Wii U would be extremely tough or expensive. Some cell phones may be there now or soon, but at a much higher cost than $300. The only thing that needed more development time was the software.

Morgan Jolley said:

People see Mario and they want to play it, but they don't want to spend a few hundred dollars to play it.

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Exactly right, for me. I'd be interested in a $30 Mario. I'm not interested in a $330 Mario. I looked at the Wiiu bundles over thanksgiving, and was additionally confused over what was for sale. In particular which bundle had the new Mario game. This article tells me I don't know what's what, because I thought the Luigi game in one bundle was the new game. Caveat Emptor and all that, but I think Nintendo is using Microsoftian marketing (what's a Surface, Surface RT, Surface Pro, Surface RT 2 Pro?) with their multitude of controllers, system bundles, and numerous recent Mario games.What do I think they need? Ditch the gamepad, get system price with a Mario game down to $199. Make their virtual arcade exhaustive and priced like iPhone games. Make the U backwards compatible with the Wii (maybe it is?) I think they are losing sales to their own customers that bought into the Wii, and don't appreciate the benefits of the new system and can't afford a $400 upgrade, especially against competing phones and tablets vying for their entertainment dollars.

DaveF said:

Exactly right, for me. I'd be interested in a $30 Mario. I'm not interested in a $330 Mario.What do I think they need? Ditch the gamepad, get system price with a Mario game down to $199. Make their virtual arcade exhaustive and priced like iPhone games. Make the U backwards compatible with the Wii (maybe it is?) I think they are losing sales to their own customers that bought into the Wii, and don't appreciate the benefits of the new system and can't afford a $400 upgrade, especially against competing phones and tablets vying for their entertainment dollars.

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This to me would be the completely wrong strategy. The best thing about the WiiU (as an owner) is the game pad. The ability to change the TV over to something else and have the game move seemlessly to just the game pad. Some games (Wonderful 101, Mario) make great use of the pad; and the future possibilities for the pad are awesome if they get developers to harness it. What's funny is that indi developers will be the first.. having seen some demos of how you could use the Gamepad's combo camera and display in a virtual environment (and some Indie games that do it) then I'm plussed with that.

The thing that would work wonders for the WiiU for me flows along with the WiiUniverse idea above. It already plays Wii games. And VC handes SNES and Nintendo64 games, etc. But the talk of having an external reader that could read 3DS cartridges would be.. fantastic.

Having the WiiU read DS/3DS games would be pointless. Nintendo has done that before with the SNES and the GameCube (playing GameBoy and GBA games, respectively) and neither device sold well enough to warrant doing it again. Sidenote: allowing a 3DS to pair with a WiiU and wirelessly put the game on the TV? That would be cool, like a reverse GamePad, but you risk losing the touchscreen and the 3D video, so again its kind of pointless.DaveF - The WiiU plays Wii games (even includes a sensor bar and supports ALL controllers from Wii, in various ways) and you can access alll of the games on the Wii's Virtual Console, even those that have not been upgraded for the WiiU's Virtual Console. If you have a Wii VC game, you can upgrade to the WiiU version (if it exists) for like $1 or so and get new features like save states, off-screen play (on just the GamePad), etc. Regarding Mario, there are 3 Wii U Mario games: New Super Mario Bros. U, New Super Luigi U (basically, large scale DLC for the previous game that changes things up and makes Luigi the main character; offered at a lower price of $20 for DLC or $30 on disc by itself), and the most recent release is Super Mario 3D Land (which, I believe, is not offered in any bundles with the WiiU anywhere).

Dropping GamePad support would be like the Xbox One dropping Kinect support. It's there for a reason and its not going anywhere. Honestly, using the GamePad is not a significant hurdle to get over for people, but the price and lack of messaging is significant. A lot of consumers think that the Wii U is JUST the GamePad and exists as a peripheral for the original Wii. NO WONDER IT ISN'T SELLING! Nintendo could probably jumpstart WiiU sales by renaming the console (Super Wii, Wii 2, etc.) and lowering the price $50.Also, the VC games will never compete with iPhone games because iPhone games will never compete with VC game quality. Final Fantasy III/VI for SNES is probably going to always be better than any iPhone game that costs less than the $7 or so that it goes for on the VC. And the WiiU is not a portable system offering endless runner games or Candy Crush Saga, so there's absolutely no point in trying to compete with that market. The 3DS, on the other hand, DOES need to compete with that and is doing a fantastic job doing so.

mattCR said:

This to me would be the completely wrong strategy. The best thing about the WiiU (as an owner) is the game pad. The ability to change the TV over to something else and have the game move seemlessly to just the game pad. Some games (Wonderful 101, Mario) make great use of the pad; and the future possibilities for the pad are awesome if they get developers to harness it. What's funny is that indi developers will be the first.. having seen some demos of how you could use the Gamepad's combo camera and display in a virtual environment (and some Indie games that do it) then I'm plussed with that.

The thing that would work wonders for the WiiU for me flows along with the WiiUniverse idea above. It already plays Wii games. And VC handes SNES and Nintendo64 games, etc. But the talk of having an external reader that could read 3DS cartridges would be.. fantastic.

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I was keying off this paragraph in the article

Although Nintendo launched Wii U with NintendoLand (a suite of mini-games that all required the GamePad controller), most of its current crop of games and everything in the foreseeable future do not actually require the pad. If anything, I thought playing Pikmin 3 with the Wii remote and nunchuk was preferable to the GamePad. I played Super Mario 3D World with the classic controller, only using the touchscreen when the game absolutely required me to. Nintendo is adding a couple of little touches to these games that use the GamePad’s second screen, but by and large they are optional. Mario Kart andDonkey Kong, coming next year, don’t look to be changing that paradigm.

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The author implies that, more than being a high cost and unused, the gamepad controller makes games worse.

I don't have much opinion, since store demos don't show off the controller. That's part of Nintendo's marketing problem: the store demos I've seen are terrible. They're mostly videos and don't give me any real sense of the gameplay, especially not the gamepad.

I don't get the appeal of gamepad-only play. Why do I want to play a game on Nintendo's inferior resistive-touch 'tablet' when I've got a Retina iPad. But I've not used it, so it might be the bees knees when everyone's competing to for the one TV that has all the toys in the house.

Morgan Jolley said:

DaveF - The WiiU plays Wii games (even includes a sensor bar and supports ALL controllers from Wii, in various ways) and you can access alll of the games on the Wii's Virtual Console, even those that have not been upgraded for the WiiU's Virtual Console. If you have a Wii VC game, you can upgrade to the WiiU version (if it exists) for like $1 or so and get new features like save states, off-screen play (on just the GamePad), etc. Regarding Mario, there are 3 Wii U Mario games: New Super Mario Bros. U, New Super Luigi U (basically, large scale DLC for the previous game that changes things up and makes Luigi the main character; offered at a lower price of $20 for DLC or $30 on disc by itself), and the most recent release is Super Mario 3D Land (which, I believe, is not offered in any bundles with the WiiU anywhere).

Dropping GamePad support would be like the Xbox One dropping Kinect support. It's there for a reason and its not going anywhere. Honestly, using the GamePad is not a significant hurdle to get over for people, but the price and lack of messaging is significant. A lot of consumers think that the Wii U is JUST the GamePad and exists as a peripheral for the original Wii. NO WONDER IT ISN'T SELLING! Nintendo could probably jumpstart WiiU sales by renaming the console (Super Wii, Wii 2, etc.) and lowering the price $50.Also, the VC games will never compete with iPhone games because iPhone games will never compete with VC game quality. Final Fantasy III/VI for SNES is probably going to always be better than any iPhone game that costs less than the $7 or so that it goes for on the VC. And the WiiU is not a portable system offering endless runner games or Candy Crush Saga, so there's absolutely no point in trying to compete with that market. The 3DS, on the other hand, DOES need to compete with that and is doing a fantastic job doing so.

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Fair enough about Gamepad vs Kinect.

On the cost of older games: my experience, time and again, is that 'retro' games are so much fun to play... for a few hours...and then I'm ready to get back to something current. Particularly with modern game-save systems. Because their replay value is so low, I think they should be priced to match. Of course, exceptions can be made for those games that really do stand the test of time. (my recent experience: the amazing game of Beyond Good and Evil with re-done HD graphics, quickly is bogged down by its decade-old save system and is gathering digital dust. Before that, re-playing N64 games for an afternoon was fun, and then I sold it on eBay)

I still think this is the wrong framework: "And the WiiU is not a portable system..." I think these fit into the category of "$500 electronics". For myself, there is direct competition between game consoles and iPads and desktop computers. I'm looking out the next year or two and wondering if I want to spend the next chunk of $500 on a new iPad or a new game system. I see my young nieces who grab the nearest phone or tablet to play on, and have never really encountered a Wii. And my nieces who were big Wii and 3DS gamers (Skylanders, most recently). But they seem to now be 'graduating' up to tablets for high school and college interests, and aren't getting the Wii U.

(Sorry for the multiple posts. I find it easier to create multiple posts than to use the editor and attempt to manage quoting multiple people with multiple 'thoughts')

What can Nintendo do? Reading Matt's and Morgan's rebuttal to my thoughts, and thinking on my ambivalence to the WiiU, what I find lacking is substantially marketing.

My perception of the WiiU is based on the Wii: I didn't like its dodgy, erratic motion control (I always felt like I had palsy, holding the controller and seeing the digital hand shake about on screen). Lacking recent experience, I expect the WiiU to have that weird, unstable feeling. I have negative expectations about its fundamental control scheme. And then they have this odd, unresponsive gamepad. I've fiddled with one at Target of BestBuy: in contrast to modern capacitive screens, the resistive screen felt unresponsive and coarse.

The game system also seems like a secondary system. I buy it after I've got a main system and played all its games. The N64 and Gamecube, I recall having top-notch third party games to rival other systems. Jet Force Gemini. Wetrix. Rogue Leader. Turok. I spent more time playing non-Nintendo games.

But with the WiiU, I see it as the second choice. It won't have the mainstream games (Bioshock). it would be like buying a PS3 if the only games it played were the cool PS3-only games games like Journey and Last of Us.

From Nintendo, I want an Apple-store like experience -- a quality in-store demo. I need to play games on the console that reveal why I want to own it. And particularly, why I'd buy it over a One, PS4, or even used PS3 or new iPad Air. Because for me that's what it competes for in dollars and attention.