Topic: How many of you ONLY own a Wii-U for next gen gaming?

Given that both Sony and Microsoft opted for PC architecture this gen, and the success they've had with it in both sales and in 3rd party output, I think it's likely that their next gen consoles will have the same architecture. That should make backwards compatibility from PS5 to PS4 very feasible. Knowing that makes me feel better about probably not buying a PS4. If nothing does come along that makes the PS4 a must-have for me, I can always just buy the next machine.

I guess it just depends on the direction that developers go. Of course trends aren't rules, but generally speaking, Western games are becoming more about a (ultra violent) cinematic experience and Japanese games are either disappearing, moving to mobile, or trying to ape Western games. None of this is particularly appealing to me. Never know what the future holds, but who knows, maybe the PS5 won't be for me either.

See this is why PC gaming is great. You get the vast majority of indies across all platforms, you get a whole pile of "console exclusives" and you have a massive back catalogue because there is no such thing as "last gen". And the stuff you miss out on? A good 80% of it is on the Wii U which also has fantastic backwards compatibility.

So this thread has been interesting purely because I know I'm getting the broadest library of games

Yes. I only bought a PS3 even last February (2014) and that was because it was mispriced for $119 for the 500G with 4 free games. Outside of those I have only found 4 games that I actually wanted, 2 of which I played. I have yet to see a single game on either XBone or PS4 that looks interesting yet. I am sure the PS4 will get some RPG's, but I have 2 unplayed ones on the PS3 and way more than that on DS and 3DS. I bought every one in my shop a WiiU this year and oddly enough, all those dudebro gamers (except for one guy, he had one already) cant stop playing it. 2 of them haven't even played COD since I gave it to them. If I do get another console, it will be years from now, unless some game comes out that I can't live without.

IMO, PC gaming has its own set of clearly defined generations, although the changes appeared gradually. Such as:

• When PC gaming went from DOS to DirectX
• When sound cards and Ethernet became standard on just about every PC
• When traditional game controllers became "standard" for PC gamers
• Steam

But if a generation should be defined only by some increase in processing power, a PC gamer gets a "next generation" at each PC upgrade.

Fyi I was the 3rd post in this topic and I follow topics I am interested in. This topic isn't about who is winning, it is about whoonly owns a Wii U for this generation. Then I believe AlexSays (could have been someone else, I am tired about to go to bed so I am not going to look back and find who) started questioning certain people's opinion. People would state what systems they own then express their opinion on why. Then someone started to question those opinions and create arguments. I even participated in some of them. Luckly for me, I saw someone post and answer the topic which made me miss the original topic we were discussing. Now the conversation is more about PS4 and its numbers, as if numbers can beat people's opinions. People will have opinions about a system such as "it has the best exclusives" and review scores don't make that opinion wrong. So lets get back to the original topic please. I am still interested in finding out who has what systems and why.

It's so lively around here... >.>

I only have a Wii U, as for current-gen consoles. I have a mid-low tier PC, so it covers most PS4/XBone games that I want too, which is not much at the time.
I think I'll end up having a PS4 one day, when the first wave of them will have died of an intentional factory "error" (like the PS3's fan-stopping knub) and that the PS4 Slim will be out with great value bundles. I waited like this for the PS3, and it turned out great, I had a great gaming experience on it, admittedly with the consoles' end-life games more than its starting line-up though.
I'm also keeping my PS3. The PSNow service is unbelievably expensive, especially since I still have a PS2 and PS1 and especially when I have pay for Playstation Plus too! Even reading @AlexSays posts about how it's not possible to make retro-compatibility happen on PS4, seeing how the Wii U emulates the Wii, which itself emulated a GameCube, at no added costs, definitely puts me off.
And I'm never getting an X-Box. The brand just doesn't appeal to me.
Seeing how it fares, I also put a lot of time into my 3DSXL. I'm pretty sure I have a Persona 4 The Golden-machine lying around somewhere too...

Except that all of those things have been around for ages, the third is a cheap non-essential addition and the last is just a different store front. There's a bit of a move now to multi-core CPUs in some more modern games but again, multi-core CPUs have been around for ages.

In terms of "wow, this is a huge leap in visuals" then sure. Especially given that you basically get a whole pile of "HD remakes" of games you already owned for nothing. But it's much, much less of a "I have to buy a whole new PC right now or I won't be able to play any of the new games". I mean you can't really expect a game from five years ago to play all of the newest games but you can and people do play games from five years ago and longer on their brand new machines.

The difference is though that neither the Wii U nor Wii emulated. The Wii U has the same architecture as the Wii and can run games natively off the hardware, no emulation required. It doesn't cost you anything because it doesn't cost Nintendo anything. Same goes for the Wii with Gamecube games. The later models of Wii only dropped backwards compatibility with Gamecube games because they dropped the ports for Gamecube peripherals.

The PS4 runs on entirely different hardware from the PS3 though. Putting a PS3 disc into a PS4, may as well be putting it into a toaster. The hardware won't know how to read the disc. Even if Sony wanted to release a PS3 emulator on PS4 though, they couldn't. The PS4 isn't anywhere close to being powerful enough to emulate PS3 games.

It's based on the same architecture, but there are also huge differences in architecture. When running in Wii mode, the Wii U CPU runs at one single (down-clocked) core, the GPU runs in a compatibility mode, and so on. The "cost" for the user is that the Wii mode is a separately booted machine, so a Wii game can never appear within the Wii U operating system.

They can create a link that boots the Wii mode with a command line that automatically launches the game in question. But that would require investing in the wii mode, and I don't think they'll do something like that.

I'm not entirely sure if PS4 or Xbox One can run PS3 or Xbox 360 games through BC, respectively. Xbox 360 could run alot of the OG Xbox games, and they were different architectures, but it is probable that it is a specific case scenario. PowerPC and ×86 have different benchmarks for certain things, so a PowerPC machine can have a number such as 2, which equals the same as 8 in an ×86 machine, FOR AN IDENTICAL PROCESS, but if you need a 9 to run BC for last gen, then the ×86 machine would be missing that extra amount that it needs, while still being a lot more capable, otherwise.

So Xbox 360 was technically a much more powerful PowerPC machine than the ×86 OG Xbox, and it obviously had enough power to run OG Xbox games. Xbox One can probably run Xbox 360. It just wouldn't be able to run a PowerPC game any better than Xbox 360, which would be why a game like ACIV looks different between the 2. So, in a nutshell, Xbox One wouldn't be able to run the PowerPC version of ACIV, the way it looks on the ×86 machines(Xbox One, PS4, PC). I know it doesn't run BC, currently, but they also said they were actually attempting to do so. Xbox One would be able to run OG Xbox, at least, because they are both ×86. It still not very practical, unless a OG Xbox VC service happened.

I think PS3 could have probably been able to run PS2 without the entire thing being in there. It just takes alot of R&D for something that they won't really benefit from, especially coming from physical to digital media. I do think the Xbox One and PS4 would benefit a lot from offering Xbox 360 and PS3 games, though, because alot of the games aren't that old, and could get some fresh extra money that they didn't have otherwise. They also might not to confuse people about what games are new or not, but that would be similarto people not understanding the difference between Wii and Wii U, if they run the same software and such.

No, I don't just own a Wii U. I game primarily on PC, and own a Wii U for the home console Nintendo games I'm interested in. I'd maybe buy more of the consoles if they had any exclusives that interested me right now, and if I wasn't just a poor student with massive loans to pay off. >.>

Yes, he was fighting by himself for two pages. However you'd like to see it. :3
I'll try to make sure I only post 11 more times to prevent it looking like I'm fighting as well.

i do not own a Wii U at all, so i would have to keep my hand down for this one.

@Kosmo Wii U does not emulate Wii and Wii does not emulate Gamecube.

While getting the specs of how it works is interesting, I was actually just talking about the system just doing it. If Sony and Microsoft decided not to have retro-compatibility, it's their decision, with their public having to face the consequences. Frankly, specs are just excuses. If Microsoft had put all the R&D that went into its lousy Kinect into retro-compatibility, I'd have been tempted by the XBone, but they made that choice, thus diminishing my interest.

Retro-compatibility is one of the reasons why people like the Wii U. With the extensive Wii library, it's a strong argument, and sets the console as a good investment for budget gamers too. What would Sony and Microsoft gain in investing in retro? A wider audience. Instead, that audience is going to get used systems, at no benefits AT ALL for them.

That's my biggest turn-off with the other consoles. If most developers are reusing old ideas, if sequels are the norm, if yearly iterations of a series are what we are to expect, at least I want to play yearly iterations with a little more depth and good gameplay. If I'm forced to choose between another Mario Kart or another Call of Duty, I will pick Mario Kart 10 times out of 10.

If the "variety" from which I get to choose is an ultra-realistic shooter or an ultra-realistc racing game or an ultra-realistic sports game ... well, that's not really variety. There are people obsessed with ultra-realism, and would take that over an actual immersive experience, good story, or amazing gameplay. Not me.

When the most hyped and anticipated and marketed games for your console have also been not-that-great, that tells you a lot.

I only have a PC and Wii U this gen. I'm frustrated with Wii U's library but there are almost no games I feel like I would be missing out on if I don't buy another console. Every generation I buy the other consoles to play the big games that aren't on Nintendo and every one of those consoles ends up collecting dust.

@Wavey: haha, to be honest what's stopping me is Destiny. i know, it's a flawed game with its own set of major issues, but i'm actually having a lot of fun with it. :3

I don't disagree at all, and I happen to think that we have more than enough Mario games on the Wii U to last the rest of the console's life. Enough with Mario. But we get one MK per generation. One Smash per generation. One, maybe two Zelda games, per generation. Yes, those are sequels, but exactly as you said, they're not yearly. That makes all the difference. There is enough spacing between Zelda games that there can be a sense of freshness to them. There's enough time to polish the games.

I had a friend try to use this very argument against me. He asked how can I criticize Activision or Ubisoft for releasing yearly iterations of Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed when I'm playing Mario Kart 8. The difference is this is Mario Kart 8 since the beginning of the franchise, back on the SNES. There have been NINE AC games, with countless offshoots, since 2007. There is no comparison.

That said, I don't disagree that even some of Nintendo's franchises have gotten a little dull. This is why I'm excited for new IPs, and particularly excited about the possibilities that the new Zelda game has, with them rethinking the traditional Zelda formula.

This is actually one of my least favorite sayings of all time. Perception is NOT reality. If people are too stupid or lazy to learn the truth, that's their fault, not "perception's" fault. But I won't get into that.

You still can't call it the same thing. Getting an entry in a series once every 6 years and an annual or biannual entry are not the same.

Splatoon is actually one of my most anticipated games coming up. If it continues down the path it's going, it'll be a day-one purchase for me.