if its not overpriced, its looking to be a fairly good console so far.

Umm, enjoy?

IKR, It was pretty random :D

you're getting me a wii? you shouldn't have :)

I went with the Wii rather than wait for the Wii U. I want to play Viewtiful Joe, and the Wii U has no backward compatibility :(

Wait, I thought it's not even out.

It's not and all the specs everyone's drooling over seem to be at least 50% speculation (though I can't be arsed to care enough to keep up, so maybe they're all out now).

One might as well wait for the inevitable price drop and bundle deals. It looks like they'll be launching without any games again and possibly with a bunch of "buy why would I care?" hardware again. I smell another 3DS debacle.

Every console ever made never launches with a lot of games - that much is obvious and I don't begrudge manufacturers that fact. What I do have a problem with is the fact that people are essentially pulling numbers out of their asses and everyone else is basing their purchasing decisions on it. It's why I steer clear away from rumour "news".

Yes, but the 3DS launched without a single good game and with a distinct lack of upcoming good games announced for the next year. It's fine to launch without a ton of games, but if you launch with no good games and no good games are currently in development, well then you're probably screwed.

EDIT: Also, we're going to finally get to see what casuals think of the upgrade treadmill, my guess is not much. We'll also see if Nintendo really alienated hardcore NA gamers or not.

The 3DS is completely different to the Wii U though. Firstly, it's not based entirely out of a gimmick that doesn't work well with all games, it's designed to compete with the other home consoles and the games that are coming out on the Wii U are going to be games that are actually going to appeal to everyone, as opposed to the 3DS which had something like five games, none of which were very interesting.

But it's confirmed the Wii U won't have backward compatibility, right?

You don't think the whole tablet thing is a gimmick? I'll grant it's not as terrible of an idea as the 3D plus motion control thing, but still...

There's more use for a tablet controller than 3D on a screen no bigger than my wallet. It also lends itself to being less of a game console and more as an entertainment unit.

Like I said, not quite as boneheaded of an idea, but still maybe not going to sell the console, especially if there's no standout functionality associated with it. The Wii sold because the novelty of the motion controls captivated the imaginations of people who'd never owned a console or hadn't in a long time. Pretty much everything used the motion controls, even if a lot of it was done badly. There were tons of games made and being made for the Wii in short order, and there were titles like the newest Mario Kart to play very close to launch, which caused existing fans to open their wallets. Even with the above the attach rate for games was poor for Wii, but that's another story.

I'm not seeing any of that happening for Wii U, it looks a lot more like the 3DS bumbling to me. I expect to see an iOS Pokemon game within 18 months.