adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
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GVMERS: Lies, Confusion and The Tragedy of Wii U
- Thread starter adamsapple
- Start date
- Drama
Drizzlehell
Banned
Is there some sort of anniversary going on? That's like a third time I'm seeing something about this console since yesterday.
DonkeyPunchJr
World’s Biggest Weeb
I bought one on launch day and man I enjoyed the hell out of it.
- Nintendo Land was an absolute blast. Some of those games felt like true arcade classics where you feel so compelled to set a high score. And the Animal Crossing game was some of the best casual local multiplayer I’ve ever had.
- Miiverse was awesome! It was so fun just making and sharing pictures, chatting with random people about whatever. It was surprisingly wholesome and chill
- also really enjoyed Xenoblade Chronicles X, Rayman Legends, Mario Kart 8, Sonic & All Stars Racing, Splatoon, Mario 3D World, NSMBU, Pikmin 3, etc
That said it was such a fuck up. Expensive, underpowered, confusingly named and marketed. Like they couldn’t decide whether to make a “Wii HD”, a traditional console, or a DS inspired dual-screen concept, so they said yes to everything and tried to do it all. Oh and cram it all into a “3 DVD cases” form factor and include hardware BC with Wii.
- Nintendo Land was an absolute blast. Some of those games felt like true arcade classics where you feel so compelled to set a high score. And the Animal Crossing game was some of the best casual local multiplayer I’ve ever had.
- Miiverse was awesome! It was so fun just making and sharing pictures, chatting with random people about whatever. It was surprisingly wholesome and chill
- also really enjoyed Xenoblade Chronicles X, Rayman Legends, Mario Kart 8, Sonic & All Stars Racing, Splatoon, Mario 3D World, NSMBU, Pikmin 3, etc
That said it was such a fuck up. Expensive, underpowered, confusingly named and marketed. Like they couldn’t decide whether to make a “Wii HD”, a traditional console, or a DS inspired dual-screen concept, so they said yes to everything and tried to do it all. Oh and cram it all into a “3 DVD cases” form factor and include hardware BC with Wii.
It wasn't just the name, that was one of the issues but not THE issue.
You gotta ask yourself "Would you pay 300 dollars for a console that is just slightly more powerful than the PS3 and 360, with a small internal disk space, whose design is almost a home console version of the Nintendo DS concept, just 12 months away from the next generation with a paltry third party support?".
It was always a poorly timed project, they lost most of their old core public to Sony and Microsoft, they lost the casuals to mobile. The Wii had infamously become the "dust catcher" console after 3 years in the market as sales slumped hard at the mid life and barely made the 100 million units sold after a very roaring introduction, most third parties had dropped or supported with shovelware, while its rivals ended up close each in numbers.
You gotta ask yourself "Would you pay 300 dollars for a console that is just slightly more powerful than the PS3 and 360, with a small internal disk space, whose design is almost a home console version of the Nintendo DS concept, just 12 months away from the next generation with a paltry third party support?".
It was always a poorly timed project, they lost most of their old core public to Sony and Microsoft, they lost the casuals to mobile. The Wii had infamously become the "dust catcher" console after 3 years in the market as sales slumped hard at the mid life and barely made the 100 million units sold after a very roaring introduction, most third parties had dropped or supported with shovelware, while its rivals ended up close each in numbers.
mcjmetroid
Member
the last few years of the Wii left a few sour taste in my mind so that's why I didn't buy the WIIU.
When they were talking about the vitality sensor and Wii music I knew the game was up. I never thought they could comeback from it.
Poor Wii U, but don't worry, your tablet controller design at least looks better than Sony's. I also hope Sony has some of that wireless lagless streaming tech inside their Q thing.
I thought it was a neat idea though, but I knew from the onset almost no one would really make use of that second screen and as time went on it seemed Nintendo wasn't sure how to make proper use of it either, or they didn't want to invest the resources to try. At least they got some cool games to port to Switch and it seemed like a necessary stepping stone to the Switch.
I think the accessory madness of the Wii led to a lot of the confusion with the controller. Ubisoft's controller thing and the fact that the Wii U console itself looked very similar in design to the Wii didn't help matters. Putting the controller together with the console in marketing materials wasn't the fix they thought it was.
I also want a Zombi U 2. I know it wasn't received massively well or anything, btu I really dug that game.
I thought it was a neat idea though, but I knew from the onset almost no one would really make use of that second screen and as time went on it seemed Nintendo wasn't sure how to make proper use of it either, or they didn't want to invest the resources to try. At least they got some cool games to port to Switch and it seemed like a necessary stepping stone to the Switch.
I think the accessory madness of the Wii led to a lot of the confusion with the controller. Ubisoft's controller thing and the fact that the Wii U console itself looked very similar in design to the Wii didn't help matters. Putting the controller together with the console in marketing materials wasn't the fix they thought it was.
I also want a Zombi U 2. I know it wasn't received massively well or anything, btu I really dug that game.
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DonkeyPunchJr
World’s Biggest Weeb
I had multiple people ask me “what’s a Wii U?” after I told them I had one. Lots of people weren’t sure if it was an add-on for Wii or what.
I remember they had commercials that said “upgrade to a Wii U!” WTF is that supposed to mean? Casuals already stopped caring about Wii a couple years ago, they aren’t going to go out and research what a Wii U is. They aren’t looking for an upgrade.
Oh don’t forget the “unprecedented partnership” with EA that ended up being nothing. PS3/360 got FIFA with a new engine while Wii U got a shitty version with the previous engine + updated roster.
What about the kickass Zelda tech demo that never became an actual game? There were even some rumors (though not proven AFAIK) that the final Wii U GPU got downgraded from 320 execution units to 160 and that demo wasn’t even possible on the final spec.
Miyamoto straight up said “games won’t look dramatically better than they do on the competition’s systems” while Reggie went on the news and said that games like Black Ops 2 would look far better than on PS3/360 (it didn’t, and most games ran similar or worse).
IBM released some press statement about how Wii U was based on the same technology as Watson, so all the dipshits online ran with it and started all these rumors that it was using POWER7 or something… then later on they clarified “no we just meant it’s using a Power PC architecture”. Turned out it was using a tri-core version of the CPU from Wii which was itself based on GameCube LMFAO
Man you could write a whole book about all the shit that went wrong with Wii U (literally… I would buy that book if someone wrote it)
I remember they had commercials that said “upgrade to a Wii U!” WTF is that supposed to mean? Casuals already stopped caring about Wii a couple years ago, they aren’t going to go out and research what a Wii U is. They aren’t looking for an upgrade.
Oh don’t forget the “unprecedented partnership” with EA that ended up being nothing. PS3/360 got FIFA with a new engine while Wii U got a shitty version with the previous engine + updated roster.
What about the kickass Zelda tech demo that never became an actual game? There were even some rumors (though not proven AFAIK) that the final Wii U GPU got downgraded from 320 execution units to 160 and that demo wasn’t even possible on the final spec.
Miyamoto straight up said “games won’t look dramatically better than they do on the competition’s systems” while Reggie went on the news and said that games like Black Ops 2 would look far better than on PS3/360 (it didn’t, and most games ran similar or worse).
IBM released some press statement about how Wii U was based on the same technology as Watson, so all the dipshits online ran with it and started all these rumors that it was using POWER7 or something… then later on they clarified “no we just meant it’s using a Power PC architecture”. Turned out it was using a tri-core version of the CPU from Wii which was itself based on GameCube LMFAO
Man you could write a whole book about all the shit that went wrong with Wii U (literally… I would buy that book if someone wrote it)
They also did that GC Zelda tech demo. Nintendo has done tech demos using their franchise characters to show off hardware before. There was also that bird tech demo that Reggie wasn't telling us who did it and making it seem like it's some super secret probable game project, which was just bullshit. I still don't know who did that damn demo....
I was lurking around the Wii U hardware speculation threads. Shit was fun. People had some wild ideas about what the Wii U could do and how powerful it was, with Iherre and wisspell, blu, explaining tech things, Ideaman leaking stuff. Ah fun times.
And after all that, it was just a slightly behind Xbox 360 in CPU and slightly ahead in GPU console and I think it had a memory bandwidth bottleneck as well, despite the memory upgrade. So it never quite came out ahead of the other consoles.
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DonkeyPunchJr
World’s Biggest Weeb
Man, the shit I read over on the GameFAQs WiiU board was hilarious at the time and even funnier in retrospect. They were convinced it would be some advanced tech on par with PS4 and X1, and that Sony would double down on every mistake they made with PS3, making it some Uber-expensive exotic system that’s hard to program for.
Early dev kits used a Radeon HD 4830 which was 2 generations old at the time and everybody was saying “I’m sure the final version will be something newer”… turned out it was actually weaker.
“The dev kits are intentionally underclocked, the final version will be more powerful”
“Wii U is designed for GPGPU programming, once devs learn the new paradigm it’ll really pull ahead of current gen”
The best was that some Vigil dev said something like “we are happy with Wii U’s hardware, we didn’t have to make any compromises in order to bring Darksiders to Wii U”. One of the biggest fanboys there took that to mean “they have the PC version of Darksiders running on Wii U at 1080p 60 FPS with all settings maxed out, PS3 and 360 don’t come close”. I liked that quote so much I made it my sig lol
(By the way that guy was a total douche. I googled his name recently and he’s now a Sandy Hook denying lunatic)
Alan Wake
Member
People give the naming too much blame for the failure of the Wii U. Main problem wasn't the name but the fact that it was an ill-conceived system to begin with. Built around the toylike Gamepad. Just not attractive in any way. The Wii had faded out at that point and still they wanted to ride on that wave with the name, the motion controls and another gimmicky controller. They assumed the formula would work once again and that Nintendoland would become the new Wii Sports. Fils-Aime said as much. Nintendo were delusional almost.
Having said that, the Wii U may have been a commercial disaster but it holds some really great Nintendo exclusives. I even liked Zombi U
Having said that, the Wii U may have been a commercial disaster but it holds some really great Nintendo exclusives. I even liked Zombi U
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German Hops
GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief
NeoIkaruGAF
Gold Member
Like I said multiple times, I loathed the system itself, but I loved the games.
I remember the system update taking hours to download and complete the day I bought the console, some time after release. Booting it up, being forced to use the Gamepad and keep it on at all times with its limited battery, the slowness of it all, the sheer amount of stuff it required fro m the sensor bar to the multiple Wiimotes.
But the first night with two friends and Nintendo Land was magical. One of the last really good couch multiplayer nights of my life, before Mario Kart 8 and then Smash took over and became routine. And the other Nintendo games were banger after banger. I still have a few to play. Kirby and the Rainbow Curse was one of those games you can’t fully reproduce on “normal“ systems, and I loved it. Splatoon went from “doubt this will make it to 100,000 sales” to “fuck this is great” in the span of the free online Splat-test. DK was fantastic. I could go on. The system’s releases dried up fast, but it was a great time all the way up to late 2015- early 2016.
Oh, and that Pro Controller was ace. The Switch’s is bad in comparison.
I remember the system update taking hours to download and complete the day I bought the console, some time after release. Booting it up, being forced to use the Gamepad and keep it on at all times with its limited battery, the slowness of it all, the sheer amount of stuff it required fro m the sensor bar to the multiple Wiimotes.
But the first night with two friends and Nintendo Land was magical. One of the last really good couch multiplayer nights of my life, before Mario Kart 8 and then Smash took over and became routine. And the other Nintendo games were banger after banger. I still have a few to play. Kirby and the Rainbow Curse was one of those games you can’t fully reproduce on “normal“ systems, and I loved it. Splatoon went from “doubt this will make it to 100,000 sales” to “fuck this is great” in the span of the free online Splat-test. DK was fantastic. I could go on. The system’s releases dried up fast, but it was a great time all the way up to late 2015- early 2016.
Oh, and that Pro Controller was ace. The Switch’s is bad in comparison.
Alan Wake
Member
I remember the "Save Wii U" chalk board at the time when no game seemed to be able to turn things around for the system. Drop the Gamepad or make it voluntary to use was one idea. Just replace it with the Pro Controller, some thought. It would lower the price and make the system less goofy. But obviously Nintendo didn't think they Wii U could be saved and concluded that it would just lose them more money. When great games like SM3DW and Mario Kart 8 couldn't do it, no game could. So they rode that gen out and prepared for Switch.
Alan Wake
Member
I bought mine in 2019, so after it was discontinued. I had found 5 or 6 games I wanted to play. Ended up buying 30. So I got quite some fun for the money, and liked the experience. Although I'll never be a friend with the Gamepad, some games, like Rayman Legends and Zombi U, utilized it very well.
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Gambit2483
Member
The Wii U crawled so that the Switch could run. Nintendo was clearly struggling with supporting several platforms even though their handhelds basically kept them afloat.
They basically took the best of the Wii U and 3DS and slapped it all into one single product...and the rest is, as they say, history.
They basically took the best of the Wii U and 3DS and slapped it all into one single product...and the rest is, as they say, history.
Trilobit
Member
I expected Nintendo to perfect the Wiimote concept even further and make a much more powerful console with Wii 2. When I saw the Gamepad on the conference I felt let down as I knew it meant that they wouldn't focus on the motion controllers any more.
Never bought one, but appreciate the games ported to the Switch.
Never bought one, but appreciate the games ported to the Switch.
nush
Member
gamepad + virtual console = a Super GBA.
TheDreadLord
Gold Member
My least favorite Nintendo console. Thankfully, all that mattered was re-released on the Switch. The main selling point of the console wouldn’t work unless you had a perfect connection between the console and the gamepad.
Kusarigama
Member
Gvmers knows how to make a triggering title. I got triggered by it even though i am bonafied team blue 
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Banjo64
cumsessed
Just stumbled upon this on YouTube about an hour ago and then saw this thread.
Good video. I liked the Wii U but it definitely felt like a tech demo for what was to come with the Switch. Poor marketing and no sex appeal meant it had no chance.
Luckily, as touched on in the video, the 3DS was a behemoth.
Good video. I liked the Wii U but it definitely felt like a tech demo for what was to come with the Switch. Poor marketing and no sex appeal meant it had no chance.
Luckily, as touched on in the video, the 3DS was a behemoth.
consoul
Member
I don't care what anyone says. WiiU was great.
Having most of its first party catalog ported to Switch has diminished it in retrospect, but at the time, Mario Kart 8, Splatoon, Super Mario 3D World, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze, Zombi U and Super Smash Bros were a fucking blast. Even Miiverse ruled.
Having most of its first party catalog ported to Switch has diminished it in retrospect, but at the time, Mario Kart 8, Splatoon, Super Mario 3D World, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze, Zombi U and Super Smash Bros were a fucking blast. Even Miiverse ruled.
Mr Hyde
Member
Wii U was an intriguing console but I never took the plunge despite missing out on a few awesome games that Nintendo released. It was pretty clear from the beginning that Wii U didn't have much of a future and I just couldn't see myself supporting that. And the abysmal third party support didn't help either. Luckily Nintendo bounced back with the Switch, which is one of my all time favorite consoles, and I finally got to play all those awesome Wii U games that I missed out on.
DevilMayFlyForAWhiteGuy
Member
The worst thing about the WiiU was how Nintendo handled everything regarding it after the Switch came out and how anti-consumer they were in comparison to before.
Going from the Wii to the WiiU you could transfer data to and play all your Wii games on the WiiU. And you could also get all your Virtual Console games on it for discounted price if you wanted to play them on the new WiiU emulator with mappable buttons. If not you could just play them in Wii mode at least for free. You could use Wii-motes and Wii Classic controllers on the WiiU as well. I still got the vastly superior WiiU Pro controller, but the options were nice.
Now, while I wouldn’t expect WiiU games to work on a Switch several things would’ve been nice if they could’ve transferred over. Like if you bought a digital version of a WiiU game like Mario 3D world, it would’ve been nice to have a discount at least. Or at least the Switch could’ve had an actual Virtual Console that your WiiU purchases could’ve transferred over to. It also would’ve been nice to use the WiiU Pro controller on Switch considering it’s functionally the same as the Switch Pro Controller (besides Gyro, which barely any third party controllers have anyways).
Some sort of bone would’ve been nice for them to throw us WiiU owners, and it’s something I feel would’ve been done had Iwata still been around. Instead when I went to play BotW on the WiiU I was greeted with a black Gamepad screen saying “tap to play on the Gamepad”. No map, no inventory, nothing.
It was the final Fuck U to WiiU owners, as the game couldn’t even come with all the features it was previewed to have, all because they didn’t want it to have anything over the Switch version. They later said it was because they thought it “wouldn’t fit the game,” but that’s bullshit because it worked perfectly fine in WW and TP HD.
Going from the Wii to the WiiU you could transfer data to and play all your Wii games on the WiiU. And you could also get all your Virtual Console games on it for discounted price if you wanted to play them on the new WiiU emulator with mappable buttons. If not you could just play them in Wii mode at least for free. You could use Wii-motes and Wii Classic controllers on the WiiU as well. I still got the vastly superior WiiU Pro controller, but the options were nice.
Now, while I wouldn’t expect WiiU games to work on a Switch several things would’ve been nice if they could’ve transferred over. Like if you bought a digital version of a WiiU game like Mario 3D world, it would’ve been nice to have a discount at least. Or at least the Switch could’ve had an actual Virtual Console that your WiiU purchases could’ve transferred over to. It also would’ve been nice to use the WiiU Pro controller on Switch considering it’s functionally the same as the Switch Pro Controller (besides Gyro, which barely any third party controllers have anyways).
Some sort of bone would’ve been nice for them to throw us WiiU owners, and it’s something I feel would’ve been done had Iwata still been around. Instead when I went to play BotW on the WiiU I was greeted with a black Gamepad screen saying “tap to play on the Gamepad”. No map, no inventory, nothing.
It was the final Fuck U to WiiU owners, as the game couldn’t even come with all the features it was previewed to have, all because they didn’t want it to have anything over the Switch version. They later said it was because they thought it “wouldn’t fit the game,” but that’s bullshit because it worked perfectly fine in WW and TP HD.
justiceiro
Marlboro: Other M
I bet Splatoon and Mario maker alone already made up for all the money Nintendo lost on the console.
Yeah ,it's pretty bad, but at least I can play switch greatest hits for half the price.
Yeah ,it's pretty bad, but at least I can play switch greatest hits for half the price.
Deerock71
Member
BlackTron
Member
The poor Wii U. Nintendo made so many mistakes and the system was chock full of annoyances. But it was well, well worth the money to buy at launch. At the time I lived in a house full of relatives with kids ranging from 12 to 18, all Nintendo fans. Just Nintendo Land was worth the money. There was no way I was gonna wait even a second to play their first HD games like 3D World. Now the family is fragmented and lives all over the country, had I waited I'd have nothing but the Switch version to play by myself.
Today I can even use the same Wii U to play almost every pre-Switch Nintendo game including DS and especially GameCube with great image quality, native. Monster console. Needing a pile of controllers to use it seems bad until you realize that is still more convenient than having 6 generations of game systems on deck. Even though it was a "failure" I never regretted buying it for a second. In fact I recently purchased another one lol.
Today I can even use the same Wii U to play almost every pre-Switch Nintendo game including DS and especially GameCube with great image quality, native. Monster console. Needing a pile of controllers to use it seems bad until you realize that is still more convenient than having 6 generations of game systems on deck. Even though it was a "failure" I never regretted buying it for a second. In fact I recently purchased another one lol.
KungFucius
King Snowflake
I played in on the WiiU because I refused to buy a Switch ( for all of 4 months) and while I agree the inventory or map would have helped, Zelda was not the game to be playing on a controller with such limited battery life. I played with the stupid pro controller and the fucking game made me use the second screen controller for the shitty gyro shrines.
DevilMayFlyForAWhiteGuy
Member
I played with the Procon as well, but would’ve played the whole game with the Gamepad constantly plugged in if had all the features.
Draxon Gamer
Banned
I find it interesting that the aarticle starts out with an irrelevant misfactoid about Nintendo introducing lock out measures, which all the previous big companies had, including Atari (7800) before the NES came to the west.
But it's how the writer is trying to set up a sympathy angle so people don't go so hard on the Wii U by the time they finish the article.
Which won't work because the Wii U was a PEEEE YOUUUU. Right guys?
But it's how the writer is trying to set up a sympathy angle so people don't go so hard on the Wii U by the time they finish the article.
Which won't work because the Wii U was a PEEEE YOUUUU. Right guys?
But you could argue that the Wii U may be the best way to play those 360/ps3 games if you missed out or your original systems were broken. It's probably the one major reason to still consider buying one. Later ports especially are an advantage because the 2005 hardware of the 360 was getting ln the tooth.
OuterLimits
Member
The fact Xenoblade X is one of the few games apparently being left to die on the failed console is a damn travesty. Even Tokyo Mirage Sessions was released on the Switch.
Alan Wake
Member
And Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, an absolutely amazing game.