Topic: Why is no one buying the Wii U?

I didn't know that BF4 was on 360 ? How do you figure ? Of course I did Oo I haven't plugged in my 360 in like 2 years .. meaning I don't care. Why would you assume I know, and own, it on PS3 but wasn't aware of it being on 360 (a console I also own). You are not making any sense and you addressed nothing of what I said. But I like your sense of humor about "improved gameplay" and "practically being blind", considering the context of our conversation (in case it was a coincidence: we talked about graphics and gameplay, one of those you would definitely miss being blind ^^)

@Ralek
Right here, you made it seem like you didn't know whether Xbox 360 and PS3 SHOULD get BF4. They already did, so the way you worded it didn't make sense.

Not a system seller in that list, sorry. I don't reckon I'm in the minority of thinking that. When the Vita was announced, people were exciting for AAA exclusive games. They haven't arrived and the ones that have are, from what I read, garbage.

@Ralek85
The problem with all of what you said about the rather long winded ecosystem thing is a point you refuse to acknowledge - people don't care. Making excuses for the Vita as a controller as a means to to an end i.e because the greater good is more important is nonsensical. People like PS Plus, no doubt about that, but that's because that's where the only games worth playing are out.

If the ecosystem thing is so important and if Nintendo is failing so badly at it than how come the 3DS has wiped the floor with the Vita bearing in mind it has no other use than being a games console. Oh yeah, that would be games. Kinda make your romanticised points a little embarassing. As for region-locking, it's good that you are so passionate about it - but how many great 3DS games have we missed out on as a result. Ace Attorney 2? A bunch of obscure Japanese things? A baseball thing or two. Maybe some drumming thing. You can't say it's a deal breaker for the majority. What is a deal-breaker is a lack of games, which is why the 3DS has flourished (eventually) and the Wii U hasn't yet.

To say that the Wii U has failed because Nintendo haven't released a bunch of other devices that all integrate is absurd. If they did that, then they really would be in the sheet, because their finances would be as bad as Sony's if not worse, WITH a failing home console to boot.

@Wonkers the problem of region locking is not that you don't get to import Japanese games, is that it forces European, Asians, Australian ect, to pay more for games, making Nintendo consoles even less attractive in those regions

I'll just say one thing here;

Trying to tie handheld consoles and home consoles together, has never, ever worked. Just ask Nintendo how well GBA to Gamecube connectivity has worked out for them.

The 3DS being used as a Wii U controller or the Vita used as a PS4 controller would neither save the Wii U or the Vita. The concept is basically doomed to fail.

I think the Wii U just needs software with aggressive titles. something like... "X Assasin", "The Demons' Chronicle", "Savage Wrath", not titles like Tomodachi life, Rusty's real deal baseball, or Pikmin.

Cute titles work fine in Japan, but not in the west.

The problem was they never made it worth it. (Similar to the Gamepad in that respect).

Without putting in any effort whatsoever I fairly often end up in a room with 4 or 5 3DS's.

For local mutliplayer for it to be fair everyone should have the same controls. The Wii U cannot even theoretically power 4 gamepad's.
(Certain games are much better without seeing your opponents screen and with more than 2 players. Local Multiplayer is supposed to be the focus).

Well sorry then, I was obviously not making myself clear. I meant I don't know if it was a good idea to release BF4 on PS3 (I already said I owned the damn game for PS3 as well, then upgraded to PS4) and X360 since it was clear they would get vastly inferior versions relative to PS4X1PC. One the hand, maybe an utterly medicore release is better than none at all for those who don't have access to next gen systems, on the other hand maybe customers will feel like they get screwed .... that's what I meant. Sorry for the missunderstanding.

@Wonkers I don't think we will agree on this any time soon, but still let me summarize. I think you are wrong, because I think you look at it the wrong way. You look at all the functionality of the Vita (controller, remote play, cross-buy/save/play, second screen etc.) one by one and argue: well not that great.
You do the same for PS+, gamesharing, trophies, region-locking. Looking at each part and say... well not bad, but not great enough to make people care. Therefor in my opinion your first mistake is, to not account for the sum of all parts.
Your second mistake is, you take a very narrow perspective in regards to the timeframe you seem to consider. I think that's actually the crux. I think many people care right now, but I'm absolutely certain many people WILL care. They will care in 5 years, they will care with the next generation of handhelds and homeconsoles that Sony will integrate into the ecosystem. The Vita adds to that ecosystem, just a little (right now), we are in argreement on this. The same will be true for Vita TV. The same will be true for any other future Sony gaming device, of that I'm certain. All Nintendo offers, as it stands from my perspective, is backward-compability for one generation and per device, other than that it looks to me like a complete break each generation. There is no horizontal product integration and very little vertical. You don't get any additional value from owning a WiiU and 3DS (maybe aside from Club Nintendo which is a bit of a joke in itself but never mind). So ... let's just wait and see, I'm certain people will care, in fact I know half a dozen people who already care deeply to the point, that it was a selfevident truth that they would get a PS4. Not for nothing I pointed to the example of Apple.
Time will tell, but I feel very confident about this, in part because people are cheap, it's just their nature, they like keeping stuff, free stuff and they like harmony and continuity If I may add one last remark, that is also why I think Steam is here to stay! I think Sony should find a way to link Steam and their ecosystem much closer together (Portal 2 was a good first step). I don't know if that will happen, but if it will, it will make for a unbeatable combination. Just imagine you could cross-buy/play/save games like Guacamelee for Steam and your Playstation ecosystem. That's powerfull stuff ... but yeah probably a pipe-dream. We'll see.

Without research information, I can only guess, but the difference between the Wii / Wii U launches were so different. Nintendo angled perfectly with a simple message with Wii ; Wii U didn't have a unified message.

That's not to say doing that would have solved their problem, but we might be seeing a couple of million more units sold to date had they had a better message from the start.

Furthermore, I am somewhat disappointed they didn't more agressively position the hardware as more powerful than current gen consoles. It probably is on the hands of a skilled developer, but the power differential, out-of-order execution and newer model CPU/GPUs aside, seem to be firmly within the 360/PS3 generation of consoles. This is disappointing in that I worry about just how much they can keep pushing the console for the next 3 years.

Ultimately, the Wii U we got, sans the GamePad was the Wii HD people wanted in 2010; Basically a Wii with more power. It should have launched in 2010 as a straightforward numbered upgrade with 100% BC (not just on games, but also on services) much like what an iPad 2 was to the iPad 1 and we might be on the Wii 3 right now, instead of a 3rd place Nintendo.

That is, in part at least, exactly that which I alluded to in the previous post, down to the Apple comparison. I agree with your assessment, this matters. Also yes, it will also be tough for Nintendo to markt their technical inferior console without the buzz of the Wii's early days and the very broad interest in motion gaming. Second Screen hasn't and won't have the same impact.

"Help me understand. I bought my Wii U on launch day and it's been the best darn video game console I've owned this generation. Not a single game drought, plenty of third party support, more power than than the XBox 360/PS3 and still no one interested? This doesn't make any sense. This is what everyone was asking for from Nintendo. Why suddenly get all weird and decide it's not enough? What could Nintendo do to that hasn't already been done?"

Cobrat,
I don't know your gaming history, but I can share mine and let you know why I don't have a Wii U. I have had every Nintendo home console since the NES. I have bought them all myself and remember being a kid and contemplating the NES or Sega Master System. The games made my decision; Super Mario Brothers, Kung Fu, and Excite Bike. After Legend of Zelda came out I was hooked on Nintendo games. SNES was a no brainer with all the sequels to NES classics and that was my train of thought for N64 and GameCube with RE4's release pushing me over the edge for the GC. My current gaming situation is a PS3 and Wii combo. The Wii U is attractive to me more so than the XbOne or PS4, but not more attractive than my current set up. The Wii U games look great and my kids have played them at friends' houses. The $300 for Wii U could get me all the $20 Wii or PS3 games to last us for a few years, though. As with all console launches there was a draught of games after Wii U's launch and third party support is not there for Wii U. In my humble opinion, Nintendo knows which titles will cause gamers to buy the console and they would have benefitted from releasing those titles, at the most, every six months and build audiences for other games like DK and Pikmin in between those bigger titles. Mario Kart or Smash Bros should already be out and the other one should be hitting this summer. Metroid and Zelda should already be announced with release dates. I know this is a long post. Hope I offered some insight.

@Ralek85

Let me summarize also. I never met chatted with anyone on a forum who speaks as much half-baked rubbish as you.
"Half a dozen people" does not equate to reason. I'm glad you are able to predict so boldly that because half a dozen people share the same feeling as you, Sony has nothing to worry about!

And it's funny you mention Steam, Apple and Sony in the same sentence. Two of those are game changing pioneers with genuine integration and healthy accounts to match. The other is a company that, rather than being a game changer, instead doesn't have enough games for one of it's consoles and has reasonably appalling accounts.

You talk about narrow-mindedness and yet you are the expert of it - remember that the Wii was a huge success for Nintendo, and the 3DS is certainly going to become a sizeable success come the end of it's tenure. So 2 out of it's last 3 consoles have worked - only one of them is struggling, for now. And yet because of that, you are saying Nintendo is clueless at everything and has no forward planning. Which perhaps might explain whatever this quality of life thing is going to be from them, as well as Smartphone integration down the line and other things; if that isn't forward planning I don't know what is.

And one more thing, who's to say if Vita TV will make it to America, never mind Europe? Maybe you and your half a dozen experts in which case I stand corrected. No more mentions please.

@Wonkers I have no use for your "half-baked" insults. You talk about what Sony "is" rather than understanding that I was talking about where Sony "is going" with this. If you can't even pick up on that much ...

What would save the Wii U for sure is a release date on HD Zelda of this holiday season. That's a total pipe dream, we'll find out at E3 it's coming next year, but can you imagine? If Nintendo could pull that off... With Smash and MK8? Total game changer.

Best console you've owned of what generation? If you're claiming it's the best of the 7th (PS3, 360, Wii), I'd say you're bonkers. If you're claiming it's the best console of the 8th (PS4, XBone), I'd say maybe... but it's awful early to make such claims.

I also bought a Wii U at launch, and have been disappointed off and on fairly regularly since then. Your question "What could NIntendo do that hasn't already been done?" is ironically the problem here. They aren't doing anything that hasn't been done. The majority of the games, with the exception of Nintendoland and W101, have already been done fairly recently... as in we just played a lot of these titles on the Wii a few years back. I'm glad you're content with your system, but I don't think "this is what everyone was asking for from Nintendo." I don't remember anyone asking for a system with no third party support, a bulky unrealized controller, and MORE Mario titles.

1. My original wii broke 2 times under light use, this combined with no account system makes me wary.

2. the cpu +gpu are old, ancient. A comparable cpu would be under 50 along with 60 for gpu.

3 You're comparing the wii u to last gen, its like saying omg n64 so much better than sega genesis/masterdrive.

4. The ps4 + the xbone are under powered garbage. The cpu and gpu in them can be gotten for sub 200 combined , and the wii u is even less than that.

5. It has no third party support or multimedia, so now i have to keep something else hooked up or use my Pc to watch a dvd and my ps3 for bluray.
_{Please don't use slurs here — TBD}

kyuubikid213

or flat-out boring by the general consensus (Knack).

Try playing the game before you discredit it as you'll find press reviews are not a universal opinion, also didn't the Wii U launch have overpriced ports of last-gen game's? of course it did, never judge a new console off it's launch titles. Basic 101 launch console rules, a hardcore gamer is someone that plays a console every day for quite a few hours, a causal gamer is someone that plays game's once in a once every two weeks or less for a few hours a most.

That is true of course. But when has this ever not been true ? Consoles where basically always completely underpowered relative to modern PCs and if you just go by cpu and gpu prices comparably overpriced. People have argued for ages that for these (among others like upgradeability) reasons consoles are inferior and will go away. What keept them going was I'd say convenience, ease of use, uniformity of the platform and certainly games games games.

yawn