I'll end buying because I do like 1st party Nintendo titles. I'll have to see what it offers to see if I buy it at or near launch before any price drops.

The Wii U has a lot of problems being passed around as unofficial rumors. Stuff like the tablets don't work right wirelessly so everyone has to develop with wires, and other random hardware issues like that that don't give me a lot of confidence.

The Wii was quickly put aside by people who had other consoles (in general, I know there's a few hardcore Nintendo fans and that's fine, they just seem to be in the minority); most of the people who accounted for the massive, early Wii sales were people who had never really owned a console before. Now Nintendo has to sell that crowd and a fairly pricey upgrade? I don't think that's going to happen.

Even so the Wii had a really low attach rate early on, which is bad for putting money in the bank (I realize the Wii was not sold at a loss). It's cheap price turned out to be kind of tricky because the Wii had more doo-dads and add-ons than the average console and I think the casual crowd has figured out the price of the console is just one tiny issue.

At any rate, late for my party, ciao.

Will probably get eventually. Hopefully it will have interersting titles right off the bat, unlike the 3DS.

...I am still getting a 3ds soon, though. MGS3. Yeah.

To be honest, at release (well, near release that is) I saw the Wii as being really the only good option. The 360 was plagued by the now infamous RROD and other issues, and the Ps3 was incredibly expensive and lacked many interesting games (which is odd considering that at this point I'd say that the Ps3 has more interesting exclusives than the 360).

The Wii's issues are, in hindsight, multifaceted. First, let's face it... the motion controls did not work properly until Wii Motion Plus. Although a handful of FPSs like The Conduit and Metroid Prime 3 made convincing arguments for IR aiming, I don't think there was a single game before Red Steel 2 that provided gesture-based controls with any amount of accuracy. At this point, the Wii's motion controls have just barely hit their stride, and it's far too late. Then there's the ubiquitous issue of less-than-impressive visuals. As I understand it, the Wii technically has the power of the original Xbox, but lacks important features such as pixel shading, which means that even last-gen engines like IdTech 4 and Source can't render at their max potential. That being said, games like Twilight Princess, Resident Evil 4, the REmake, Super Mario Galaxy, and Metroid Prime 3 all show that it is completely possible to have highly attractive visuals on the Wii. Heck, Twilight Princess and the two Resident Evil games ran on the GC, and they still look better than the majority of Wii games. Nintendo can certainly take some blame for the Wii's lack of power, but developers deserve an equal amount of blame. And, of course, there's the biggest issue...lack of good 3rd party support. In this case, it's known that Nintendo is not always the easiest to work with as far as 3rd parties go. However, I think there's also a certain element of developers not taking the Wii seriously. Underpowered visuals and a limited number of buttons are not good excuses for putting out shallow, crappy games.

erm... I kinda lost track of where I was going with this. It's late...

Anyway, I guess those are just some random thoughts.

This is really true. People who have another console did really put the Wii aside due to its lack of good games and features compared to its competitors. It happened to me too. I have a Wii, bought it a few months after release, but i barely ever play it. I only play Nintendos great first party titles.

The only good games Wii has are first party titles and a few rare decent third party titles (i can only recall The Conduit, Trauma Center, Red Steel and Mad World right now), everythiubg else are just some stupid casual games and terrible ports. It just isnt enough compared to the huge amount of great games both the Xbox 360 and the PS3 have.

My sister got her boyfriend a Wii for Christmas and I finally got to try it. I was underwhelmed, but I recently moved from a PS2 to a PS3 and I'm already a bit spoiled. I'm also not a fan of the kiddy titles (die-hard LOZ/Metroid fanboy, and that's about it) so there isn't much to attract me to the console. Unfortunately. (I remember when I used to rag Sony and worship Nintendo, but the 64 is a bygone Titan, a fallen god of the elder age, and its successor and avatar the Gamecube could never capture my attention like the 64 did...)

Oh, and I just have to say - we were playing a Mario Brothers game, not sure what it was called precisely, and the limited amount of motion control we had to do SUCKED. I hated it. I had to flail my arms like an idiot to get Mario to spin-jump or pick something up when there were at least four unused button combos that would have worked every bit as well.

WiiU failed several years ago when it was first released as Gba/Gamecube connectivity. Nimtendo wants mandatory handheld use with their consoles, and like sony, they will. Ake sure you have to buy their product this time...but like bluray, I thonk the tech will.be DOA.

OT: I wish more games brought the voice controlled gameplay niche back into focus. AFAIK PS2 only had lifeline(which I loved even with the semi-terribad voice recognition) and a few other systems had a title or two. Such promise for a new gameplay style and not many utilized it. :(

GBA didn't have touchscreen or gyroscope, and it had a lot less buttons. And with cable, it costed a lot more. And it was optional, and not standard part of the Gamecube package. Seriously.

I completely disagree with most of what you said, but I at least see where your coming from with it. The Sony thing has me confused though.

It was optional precisely because it was a failure. If you wander into houses in every Pokemon game made for the DS and click on things it'll say "It's a Nintendo Gamecube with a Gameboy hooked up as a controller" or similar. They seriously wanted this to be big and despite the wild success of the actual DS it was a complete failure (perhaps if every DS came with the cable it might have had a chance).

I know Nintendo wants you to live in their own little walled garden (just like Apple in fact) but they haven't presented a very compelling case for investing in all things Nintendo. Frankly all the reviewers I actually trust said Skyward Sword was pretty lackluster for a Zelda title; and I'll be honest I'm pretty tired of playing the same damned Zelda game over and over again; and the only inventive Mario game in years was Super Mario Galaxy (no, Paper Mario doesn't count). Metroid was fun on the Gamecube but they somehow managed to screw up the Wii titles. Super Smash Bros isn't my thing. Literally what else is there?

AND THEY CHARGE A LOT, seriously, the pricing is insane. No, I'm not giving a pass to the similarly asinine Vita pricing, but we're not talking about Sony here.

Frankly, there still isn't a game that would make me buy a 3DS, but at least Nintendo kind of gets the handheld thing right (and they seem to support 3rd party devs properly for it). As others have pointed out, the living room consoles are going to be first party titles only.

So as someone who's waiting for next gen do I want Nintendo's Wii U? No, seriously not unless they get some really amazing games on it, in which case I'll pick one up well after launch. Will I upgrade to a 3DS eventually? Yeah whenever the 3DS "Lite/Has Battery Life" comes out and there's some games I want to play on it. I think Pokemon Grey actually will be a DS title, there's just not enough 3DS handhelds out there right now.

Seriously? What does the DS have to do with GBA/GC connectivity? I think you're confusing Nintendo with Sony and the propietary memory cards of Vita. Yeah because all Zelda games require Motion Control Plus, and have no exploration and secrets. Obviously, Skyward Sword is just the same old- same old, as were games like Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker, etc.. All the same, no difference.

Maybe you should judge games by actually playing them, instead of relying on reviewers who criticize Skyward Sword for its poor IR controls (hint: Skyward Sword doesn't use IR). Paper Mario is RPG. So of course it doesn't count.

In the past the 20 years, there have only been seven Mario platformers made, so saying Mario Galaxy was "the only inventive Mario game in years" doesn't mean much, and one inventive game is still more than vast majority of game series can muster.

I must say it is pretty funny somone criticize the Mario series for not being "inventive" enough, of all things. Not an accusation one hears often, to say the least. Seriously, you've lost me here. What are you talking about? So you're already pre-emptively blaming Nintendo for future bad third-party games? Nintendo is not responsible for shitty third-party games, either in the past or the future. Third party games are usually made by companies other than Nintendo There is hardly any info out on Wii U, so to already declare you will not buy one says a lot, as does your lengthy, incoherent rant about all things Nintendo inspired by my two line explanation about the differences between GC/GBA connectivity and Wii U.

Wasn't part of Nintendo's success formula ast generation that their offerings in hardware were CONSIDERABLY cheaper than the competition? It was underpowered, yes, but cheaper

Software, though, damn Mario Galaxy was fullprice for YEARS.

+1

The whole GBA->GC setup was a great idea on a fundamental level, the flaws lay in the fact that it required two consoles and a special cable to connect them. This (providing the whole Wii U package isn't too expensive) seems to solve those problems.