Topic: Is the Wii U a failure?

Nobody gives a flying feather whether or not you buy one, but acting like you have a perfectly valid opinion of the thing when you don't even have one is the problem at hand. As I said to Bolt_Strike previously, if you don't want it, don't get it, but don't go around bashing it and then expect those of us that have actually played on one to not laugh at how weak your argument is.

Are Mario Kart games formulaic? Of course they are. I will break it down really easy for everyone

Take Pac Man. If you add more ghosts, it's still pac man. If you change the shape of the mazes, it's still pac man. If you made him a blue square it's still pac man. If you turn it into a 1st person rat in a cage shooter, it stop's being pac man. In the same way there was a culture shock between the Snes MK and the N64 MK but essentially, they had very similar design briefs, only the technology had changed.

But you turn Super Mario World into a 3D game, it's not Super Mario World 2, it's called Mario 64.
You turn Mario World into a role playing game then it becomes Mario RPG
You add new platforms and levels and update the graphics and it become NEW Mario World.

As a gamer...this just seems really basic theory and surprised there is such a discussion about it.

And yet everyone that has played both games will tell you that they are not the same. Also, ''minimal excuse plots''? As if anyone ever played Mario or Donkey Kong because of their incredible stories. It's just an easy way to set a goal. ''Trouble happened, go fix it'', it's a simple ''story'' that allows them to focus on gameplay rather than narrative.

Anyway, are we really trying to argue about Wii U games with two people who don't even own a Wii U? Seems kinda futile if you ask me...

There's no "shame" or "pressuring" going on here at all. I couldn't care less about what platforms anyone owns, if anything I'm all for multi-platform gaming. All of the platforms out there have their merits and all have great content. All I'm saying is that if you don't own the platform you can't really comment on games exclusive to that platform. If you don't own a Wii U you can't really complain about how it's games are formulaic. You certainly can't compare it's library to other platforms, particularly ones with similar libraries.

The thread devolved into a debate about whether the Wii U's library was better than the Wii's or not. For whatever reason. You were arguing that the Wii's library was clearly better.... but how the hell would you know? You don't own a Wii U! It's like we got into a debate about which band is creating the most interesting music ATM. I bring up Tame Impala, you reply with "With a name like that I bet they're some hipster junk. Yeah, I bet they suck". When I say that's BS because you haven't listened to them your whine about how I'm "pressuring" you into listening them. I mean fair enough if you're not into it, I don't mind, but don't whine about it if you haven't actually given it a spin.

The Wii U has had it's ups and downs in sales...sure, it's not the sales figures that nintendo has been hoping for, but it's not doing THAT bad as what other websites tell you...don't forget that anyone can post something and put it on the internet, and most of that stuff that you find on the internet is un-true. Other than that, the gamecube was known as a flop by nintendo...had many wonderful games and 3rd party support...the virtual boy--flop...the N64 didn't have the huge sales that they were hoping for but turned out to be a wonderful system with many other wonderful titles. Don't forget that the 3DS took a while to take off...almost into 2 years of its life.

Other than that, yeah, the Wii U may not be doing well as the other consoles, but it does have some great games. I think most people bash it for the lack of 3rd party and most of the games being kid-friendly E-rated platform adventure games, and other people bash it just because it's nintendo. Since the N64 days, all I remember hearing is about how nintendo is just kid-friendly...got tired of hearing it too, as I always bought their systems, but I didn't care.

If you enjoy the system, and will find yourself coming back to play it about 20-30 years down the line, then you have a great system (as long as the controller's TV screen continues working that long). The gamecube was my favorite system out of that past generation, and I still love it for all it's worth (except for the carry-handle on the back of it). Nintendo will come back into life with the NX system, as long as they do it better, and with the fact that they advertised the heck out of Splatoon, and found themselves with a hit, then maybe they started to wake up! If the Wii U was advertised that much, and had a better launch title of games and had the virtual console all set up and ready to go, they would have succeeded better. Right now, nintendo needs to work on what their next console will do, how powerful it will be (it's going to have to at least match the PS4 and XONE no matter what is said), get back the third party support (going to take some time, but they will need it because no one likes waiting 6-months for a new game to come out), advertise it like nothing (commercials, magazine advertisements, internet and more)...then they should have a winner. What they also need to do is have a decent launch library. The 3DS had 2 games, which was pathetic, and then you had to wait for more, and the wait even longer for the E-Shop to be added, which didn't give many people excuses to go out and buy one...I'll even admit that I was unhappy with it when I got it on launch, but I love it now.

Even if you don't own a Wii U, you pretty much know what Mario Kart and SSB are about. These games aren't supposed to mix up the formula, if they did it would be a completly different game. As for other games like 3D World and TF, you need to play it before you compare it with former games from the series.

I love how one can declare a system a failure when they have a fantastic new game around the corner in Splatoon. Also E3 is coming up and who knows what wonderful surprises they have in store for us. They stole E3 last year, and with some solid Star Fox footage, and an Animal Crossing for Wii U announcement they could do it again.

1. The response from the industry was luke warm from the unveiling forward. Nintendo listened to none of the criticisms going into launch and the response from the mass market became visible immediately after the 2012 holiday season when monthly sales dropped down to 40k units. It was selling worse than Wii, PS3, and 360. It was selling like a dead console when it had only just launched.
2. Were people so upset when the VB was discontinued and the N64 released?
3. If they had made the decision in early 2014, it would have been plenty of time to create better hardware, move Zelda and XCX over to NX and launch the console a year earlier than they are now. Nintendo has lost money on WiiU because it never took off and never became a strong platform for them to sell their games on. The Wii had 50 million users in a little over two years. Nintendo needs that sort of immediate footprint in the market. WiiU is small potatoes to what they need to and can do.
4. Most people quit playing Wii years ago. The platforms that people are still playing from the previous gen are the PS3 and 360. Even though the early adopters have gobbled up almost 20 million PS4s, that isn't 1/5 of the market. The majority of this industry is still buying games on PS3 and 360 (mostly because they just keep coming out on them).
5. The issues with the hardware as a product are the issues that have held it back. There is no conspiracy against Nintendo. It's Nintendo that hurt Nintendo with this console. The root of it is Iwata and NOJ severing their American and European arms, consolidating revenue/funding in Japan. Iwata has totally changed the company from Yamauchi's strategy of an umbrella of Western teams and strong voices in NOA and NOE to keep NOJ plugged into those markets. But as for the nuances of the WiiU itself-- it's everything from the name to lack of an ear piece or Ethernet port to the superfluous controller. Nintendo learned a hard lesson with this console in that their games don't sell the platform-- the platform sells the games.

The N64 was on its way to bigger things... and then Dreamcast appeared on the horizon. The Dreamcast, though it initially ate up 10 million users from the market by the time it was only a year old in the states, was doomed by Sega's financial failings. Sega couldn't endure the wait for the system to reach 20-30 million users. The reason a larger user base is important to profits is because profits come from game sales. Nintendo sold about 900 million units of software on Wii.

Nintendo's not getting milk out of WiiU. Its tits are dry. Nintendo needs a console with 50 million units-- 50 million core gamers that buy third party titles in addition to Nintendo games.

The 3DS has competition. There are about 1 billion smart phones out there. The problem with releasing a new portable in the next two years is that Nintendo just launched a new portable. Their new portable has so few changes in design and hardware that even hardcore Nintendo fans can't tell it's new-- even though Nintendo intently put the word New in its name. The New 3DS is a new portable. The old 3DS can't play games built for the New 3DS and that is what defines a new platform. After 30-something years, Nintendo has come full circle to the mistakes of the Atari generation-- making iterations of hardware instead of a whole new product.

To your last point-- as you said, people aren't going to spend hundreds of dollars on those games. People buy consoles as a product unto themselves. People buy the experience and they buy the potential for games. Gamers want the greatest online experience and they want the greatest potential for graphics. Gamers don't dislike Nintendo's software, they dislike the idea of Nintendo's games not being on hardware that could run them to the maximum capacity of today's technology. Who doesn't want a next gen Metroid, Zelda, or Mario adventure? Why would anyone want it on hardware that was designed to be weak intentionally so it could be smaller and run the fans less loudly?

Are you seriously comparing the Wii U to the Virtual Boy? Okay, let me break this apart:
1. There are more games that people enjoy on Wii U than Virtual Boy.
2. The Virtual Boy didn't have as many games as the Wii U (there were only 24 games for it, and from my understanding, people only enjoyed a fraction of the games).
3. Unlike the Virtual Boy, the Wii U doesn't hurt your eyes.
4. The Virtual Boy wasn't technically finished. According to Gunpei Yokoi, it wasn't supposed to be released in the state that it was.
I think that the Wii U was supposed to be released in its current state.
5. The Wii U, while not being as successful as it could've been, has most certainly been more successful than the Virtual Boy.

6. The Virtual Boy was a legitimate health risk. So it was scrapped very quickly.

I think that kinda goes with #3. Point is, you cannot compare the Wii U the Virtual Boy. Seriously. You'd be comparing a system that people enjoy (those who bought one, anyways) to what's considered to be one of the worst video-game consoles ever.

These people don't even own a Wii U, don't bite, they are trolling

Just for the record:

Virtual Boy: 770,000 units sold.
WiiU: 10,000,000 units sold (until now).

No one is trolling.

Why would people comment on Wii U games when not owning a Wii U ?

Bubbling always works. Or they could not have co-op in every single game, co-op doesn't work well with platforming anyway.

It doesn't have to have a huge storyline focus, but if you have too little than the game is nothing more than a loose, arbitrary collection of levels that feel like they could be a part of any game. That contributes to the feeling of the platformers being rehashes. Sunshine and Galaxy 1 struck a pretty good balance with storyline and gameplay, there was enough plot that your role in the events mattered but there wasn't too much that it interfered with gameplay.

@Ootfan98 Most of the issues being discussed aren't even Wii U specific, they're patterns that started in other console generations and worsened on the Wii U. My argument that the Wii U has a lot of rehashy platformers, for example, is not something that started on the Wii U. It started around 2010 when they started pushing for more retro 2D platformers like NSMB and DKCR, and they've been emphasizing those kinds of games more and more on the Wii U while not producing much of anything that stands out from other generations. The same applies with issues like hardware and sales, these problems are nothing new, they've simply gotten worse this generation. So it's not as if people are arguing things they've never experienced, they've simply had enough of these problems and aren't even bothering.

So this is the new "Haru/Strike versus the world" thread. I guess?

Saying a game that you haven't played is bad is the same as saying a movie you haven't seen is bad. You cannot fairly judge a product without experiencing it. Watching someone else play a game or hearing about the movie from a friend does not guve you proper perspective to fully judge the product. You can say those certain products haven't caught your attention and that is why you have not played them, but trying to say a game is bad because cosmetically they didn't do anything different is like saying Fast Five must be bad because 2Fast 2Furious was bad. You need to experience a product before judging it. The only judgement you can give it without experiencing it, is the judgement on whether it looks interesting. If it doesn't catch your eye then it is a failure of marketing, whether or not the product is good or bad. I hope that made sense, wroteit on my phone after just waking up lol

@BlueSkies Fractally. Wrong. Your argument isn't even based in reality, it's so bad. The VB argument being the most immediately laughable.

Also, the Wii's sales figures were a freak of nature. That and really every console performance in 7th Gen would make a very unrealistic goal.

Your argument is so bad that I feel like picking it apart would actually physically hurt. You know absolutely nothig about the gaming industry, the market, the history of consoles, or even the simple and most core fact that games sell the system, not the other way around. SEGA learned that the hard way. Seriously, it's like you are trying yo be as incorrect as humanly possible and all it's amounting to is making my face hurt from the absurd amount of facepalming I've been doing.

We should compare the Wii U to the Dreamcast!