Wii U - the new Nintendo console

[Jobydrone]

"If a new Nintendo console launches, and nobody is there to buy it, did it ever really launch?"

This existential question may be the one Nintendo executives are asking themselves in a couple of months.  There's very little excitement over this rebranding of the Nintendo Wii, which launched to little fanfare this past Sunday.  I was shocked today, going into Gamestop to check out their Buy 2 Get 1 free sale, to see that there were systems on sale in the middle of the afternoon Black Friday, from people bugging out on their pre-orders.  I was so tempted to buy it but I still feel burned by my early adoption of the PS Vita which has totally tanked with no 3rd party game support.  So I plan to take a wait and see attitude with this one.  A quick online check shows console availability in the majority of the retailers around me, though online they're still sold out.  This is a far cry from the original Wii, which found people almost a year after launch scrambling from store to store to find one of the systems to purchase. 

The big draw to this new system, other than the Nintendo name and patented franchises like Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and Pokemon (of which the only available title at launch is New Super Mario U), is the new controller, which has a 6.2 inch touchscreen smack dab in the middle of the rest of a standard console controller with two analog joysticks, the face buttons, and the shoulder buttons, and tilt and motion sensitivity built in.  Playing with this controller at kiosks in stores, my impression is that the controller is very light, and almost feels like a cheap toy.  It's good that it's not too heavy because that wouldn't be good for long gaming sessions, but I'd worry putting this in the hands of kids as it seems like it might break easily.  The touch screen is not that sensitive, and seems to have some of the same problems of the DS touchscreen of having to hit pretty hard and precisely on the screen for it to register correctly.

There's some interesting ideas percolating surrounding this system.  One is that certain titles can be played on either the TV or the touch screen itself.  So say if you're playing Mario, and Mom comes in and wants to watch her soap operas, with a touch of a button the game switches from the TV to the controller screen, and without losing a beat Mom can watch her shows and you can keep right on playing.  Also, partnering with content providers like U-Tube, Netflix, Amazon, etc. seems like a no brainer with basically a non-HD tablet display as your controller, though I believe only Netflix is available at the current time.

The system itself is much more of a powerhouse than the previous Wii, sporting HD graphics and processing similar to the current generation Xbox and Playstation platforms.  That's all well and good for the next year or so, but given their competitors plans for their own system upgrades within the next 18 months, Nintendo will soon enough find themselves at the bottom of the heap again as far as pure gaming power goes.

Software for the system seems mediocre at best.  Alot of games released a while ago are now available for the first time on a Nintendo platform, like Mass Effect 3, Batman Arkham City, Darksiders 2, and the more recent Assassin's Creed 3.  But who are these games for?  The majority of people that buy ONLY Nintendo systems don't want to play those kinds of games.  And those that have multiple consoles have most likely already played those games.  I foresee these sitting on store shelves gathering dust, unsold.  Of the new titles, Mario seems like a rehash of already existing games for the DS, Wii, and 3DS, and doesn't come with the surprises and innovation that the Mario series has been known for.  Nintendoland is a group of Nintendo franchise-themed mini games that are mostly designed to show of the capabilities of the new controller.  It's packed in with the "deluxe" model of the console, and some of the minigames have been described as fresh, fun and interesting.  The game that most interests me is Zombii-U.  It's supposed to be really hard, atmospheric, scary, and uses the new controller in interesting, smart ways.  One game doesn't justify a $400 purchase though, so I am waiting to see how this does.

I'd be dumping my Nintendo stock if I had any though, that's just my gut feeling.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

I feel too many conflicts over this console to have a general solid opinion on it. It's next gen, but the hardware powering it seems lacking, which means Microsoft and Sony wouldn't have to work hard at overpowering it, if they ever release a new console. But, Nintendo seems to be working hard to get 3rd party developers on the system with a more developer-pro e-store, no charging for updating games (unlike Microsoft that charges thousands of dollars for a small patch) and other things that devs seem generally enthusiastic about. The controller....its so hard to say. Maybe devs can come up with clever uses for it. It's way too early to tell.

All in all...it's just too early and too difficult to say for Nintendo. They alienated core gamers from their Wii, the people who would have whole-heatedly embraced this new attitude from Nintendo and would keep them going. But since they ran them off to Xbox and PS3, they have no reason to return to the Wii U and I don't think the controller will be enough for them. The casual market seems to be moving towards the mobile platform/Facebook and may not justify the Wii U. But it's all conjecture and too early to tell. I think Christmas will say a lot about the Wii U's chances

[Jobydrone]

It's less than a week old and I'm not saying this is the end for Nintendo as we know it...but I don't think this is going to be the huge hit across all spectrum of people that the original Wii turned out to be.  My money is on Microsoft to dominate the next console generation...again.  It's looking like they're going to have another good amount of time ahead of Sony with the launch of their next generation console, reports are saying they could launch up to a full year in front of PS4.  That could be all the head start they need to get their install base set early and keep Sony and Nintendo at bay for years to come. 

[jedijeff]

I had not really been following the Wii U release all that Closely, so a bit surprised to hear it is not selling well. I played the demo Model at Best Buy last weekend, and I thought the it was an interesting concept with the new controller with screen. I thought the idea of playing the game well someone watches TV was interesting. But with that said I found it a bit distracting as not sure what I should be looking at, and when I was playing in the store, the controller just felt really over sized.
For me, I was not planning on getting a Wii U anyways. When I got the Wii, I was like the rest of the world, swept up in the hype of it. But have to say, after about 3 or 4 months never really touched it. It would be up to a year between turning it on, I think even once, it had been so long that I had the red light on it, and had to reset the power on it as it had been so long. I sold it earlier in year with all my games for a really good price just to get something out of it. We also have a XBOX 360 and play that much more. My Wife and I are more casual gamers, but found that we out grew the Wii U really fast. I think the strength with Nintendo is Nintendo games, and if we had kids, maybe we would view it differently. That said, my nephew who is 12 and a hard core gamer out grew his Wii years back, and exclusively plays his XBOX 360, but still had a 3DS for his pokemon games. Even if he wanted to play his Wii, I don't think he can as his dog chewed it up  :laugh:
I think as well, people might think back to how underpowered the Wii was compared to PS3/XBOX 360, and figure when the next generation of those consoles come out, they will trump the Wii U anyways. XBOX surpassed Wii with the Motion control, so I suspect whatever is in the Wii U that both Sony and Microsoft can easily replicate if need be. My guess is most people who are XBOX 360/PS3 owners don't see Wii U as an upgrade for them from their existing consoles.

[Jobydrone]

Let me say I have no idea of sales numbers...just projecting based on a SEEMINGLY decent supply around the busiest shopping period of the year.  It could be selling gangbusters and Nintendo figured out their problem with supply this time, nobody knows and Nintendo won't be telling...