Topic: Wii U question.

When should I expect a price cut for the Wii U? Will the Wii U gamepad ever be able to be its own handheld or play ds - 3ds games? lol

Nintendo says no price cut anytime soon....and the GamePad is not a handheld console.

It's weird they don't price cut considering the sales... I think the price is fair though i'm just broke after all my recent purchases. and this ZombiU looks amazing! I forgot Nintendo made a non pure motion console recently...

If you are living in UK, there is a price cut: 149 GBP Wii U basic, 199 GBP Deluxe @ASDA direct.

It's not the price that's causing the low sales, it's the software. But let's not go into that, there's a whole other thread about that.

1 This is the place to inform yourself I thought, otherwise the forums would get no traffic and this site shut down. Also 2, can you at least link me the other thread about the software issues you speak of with the WiiU? Wouldn't a lower cost increase install base and that would help out hardware issue or not??

Your an Insider of some kind. I remember when Nintendo wouldn't cut the price of the 3DS. Nintendo may not want to cut the price but in the face of a $399 PS4 they have no other choice but price cutting as they're two close once you compare them. I work at a retail store and unless i'm dealing with a customer who's buying for a younger aged child I can't recommend the Wii U over the PS4.

The gamepad is not capable of being a standalone handheld ever, it simply doesn't have the technical capabilities to run on its own. Don't expect that in this gaming generation.

As for a price cut... Well, it's highly unlikely. Most game consoles are sold at a loss, companies rely on software to make a profit. Still, after the 3DS had a rough start, a price cut for the Wii U would practically be admitting defeat. It won't fix the problem of having such a small library and no killer apps. All it will do is send off a signal that the company is desperate as well as create an expectation that Nintendo consoles and handhelds will see price drops in the first year. It may increase sales a small amount, but not enough to warrant the price drop. Right now the system just needs games. I'm not saying a price drop can't happen this year but I wouldn't hold my breath. I'd say holidays 2014 we might see one.

Would it be admitting defeat or trying to save the system. People felt the price was too much upon launch for what you were getting but now that we know most of the power and feature set of the next gen console it makes the $350 a harder pill to swallow especially when you throw in the extra $60-100 for an actual HDD.

Guitardude beat me to it, but yeah...only reason 3DS got a price drop is because it was considered overpriced. The Wii u is not, there is no reason to give it a price cut...only reason it isn't selling well is because Nintendo's AAA games aren't out yet.

@guitardude7

1.Technically you can do off TV Play if you own a Vita.Not out the box but I haven't seen the gernal public fawn over the gamepad in the same way they did with the Wiimote. I'm not sure people care about a tablet controller sadly.

2.Miiverse is legit, but both PSN and Xbox Live will have there own social systems as well as tieing in directly to Twitter and Facebook.

3.That still doesn't dispute the fact that the public doesn't really care for the Gamepad, since a few sees it at what keeps the WIi U's price high.

4.All three systems has mature games.. The thing you want is support something the Wii U isn't getting compared to the other two systems. Baynoetta 2 is awesome but the series isn't a big system seller or anything. It is however a indicative of the moves nintendo has to make to get rid of an unpopular perception.

5. That's good but the biggest of the those IP and a compilation featuring those IP's haven;t help the Wii U yet. (admittedly that's more so on NOA's poor marketing than anything else.

No one ever said that rated M games are only what's needed to appeal to older gamers. I'm 21 and think the WIi U has a pretty decent lin up. My problem is that Nintendo's lin up while good has become super homogenized and is actual the elast diverse of the big three's line ups this year.

Microsoft Studios
Xbox 360
Gears of War Judgement
Fable Anniversary
Zoo Tycoon
Project Spark
Ascend Hand of Kul
Battleblock Theather
Charlie Murder
Crash Course 2
Lococycle
Max and the cursed brotherhood
Motocross madness
State of Decay
Super Time Force
World series Poker: Full House Pro

Xbox One
Forza motorsport 5
Ryse son of rome
Kinect Sports rivals
dead rising 3
Lococycle
Zoo Tycoon
Killer Instinct
D4 Episode 1

Sony World wide studios

Playstation 3
Diggs Nightcrawler
Dust 514
God of War: ascension
MLB the Show 13
Sly Cooper: Thieves in time
Beyond Two Soul
Gran Turismo 6
Invizimals the lost kingdom
Puppeteer
Until Dawn
Rain
Ratchet and Clank: Into the nexus

Playstation 4
Knack
Killzone shadowfall
Drive club
Planetside 2 (still a bit iffy)
DC Universe Online (iffy as well)

Playstation Vita
MLB the Show 13
Soul Sacrifice
Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time
Invizimals the alliance
Killzone Mercenary
Tearaway

(In hindsight some of that PS3 stuff should have been pushed to PS4,

Nintendo

Wii U
Lego City Undercover
Game and Wario
Super Lugi U (does this count as a seprate game?)
Pikmin 3
The Wonderful 101
The Legend of Zelda: WInd Waker HD
Wii U party
Wii Fit U
Mario and Sonic at the 2014 Olympics
Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze
Super Mario 3D World

3DS
Fire Emblem Awakening
Brain Age
Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Gates to Infinity
Lego cit undercover; the chase begins
Donkey Kong Country Returns
ANimal Crossing new leaf
Pokemon X and Y
Mario and Luigi dream team
The Legend of Zelda a link between two worlds
Mario Party
Tokyo Crash mobs
Harmoknight
Kersploosh
Mario and donkey kong minis on the move
Dillions rolling western: The last ranger

Great information in this thread, and thanks to guitardude7 for clearing all that up originally. I find the Wii U to be interesting, and you are probably right about that marketing because I never saw anything about it until recently i started actually looking into it myself. However no ad brought me here I just got lucky. I always loved nintendo games, won't be a problem paying current prices especially since amazon is selling them at a pretty good price, its just with all these power consoles It may be difficult for me to justify the purchase until some more of those exclusives you mentioned start being released... I have a feeling if I get my way my home will be packed with a lot of current / next gen consoles.

The Wii U isn't even being sold at a loss. They are selling it for face value.
I heard they make around $5(give or take a few cents) profit on the thing, and that's why Deluxe Digital Promotion exists, so it knocks it down to face value by buying digitally.
The Wii U will be fine. I'm more interested in Nintendo exclusive than PS exclusives, so that's a reason why I buy Nintendo straight up, evetytime.
I would choose 3D World, Mario Kart 8, and Gears or War or a 3rd party game instead of Second Son, Drive Club, or Uncharted, anyday.

Something that makes the Wii U cheaper in the long run is the fact that most Wii controllers and peripherals work for Wii U. If I get a PS4 I would need to buy a second controller to play with friends, while I have been able to play my Wii U with friends without having to shell out for more controllers. The black Wii U also has a game bundled and the Deluxe Digital Promotion, which gives you credit for eShop purchases you make.

They are going 270 - 300 for the regular white ones at the moment, I would consider this more then a fair price. I wouldn't however ever only own a Wii U, and that is known to me right off the bat. I however don't know if I would be saying that if they had a regular controller, but I see how having this touch screen controller makes the console unique.. I'm just not one for a screen or touch pad in a controller for anything serious, maybe more of a gimmick for me.

Even if all the controls can use the buttons / sticks to function I don't really care for supporting touch screen ideals, It still would be trading a lot of ergonomics for a feature I don't really care about.

^ Not hating on the controller I actually find it to be pretty neat especially when I see how games like ZombiU use it, This is just sort of the thought processes going on in my head as to justifying the cost to the system and comparing it to the rest. Honestly the controller holds me back more then the 2gb of Ram, Or at least gives me a reason to hope for a price cut.

@You_Silly_Human
When considering the 2gb RAM vs. 8gb RAM, it's probable the Wii U is processing less data than PS4 and Xbox One, anyway.
i.e. An HD file of 3-5GB vs an SD file of 1-2GB.
The Xbox One and PS4 have already been confirmed to be 4K capable. That requires more memory to work.
So an HD file could very well be 5 GB of data in comparison to a similar 4K file that adds say, 3GB more of data.
The Wii U can technically run 1-3 programs off of 1GB of RAM in the background, then more based off of the other 1GB of RAM for games to either interact with those OS features, or in-game RAM uses.

In otherwords, software on the Wii U may not require as much RAM as an Xbox One or PS4, so it makes sense that it has less RAM than the competitors.

It sounds nice in theory but I'd still like have to see actual numbers before I agreed with you.

Well, HD files displayed at 1080p require 2.5× more data in comparison to 480p.
So a 1GB movie file in SD would equal the same content in HD as 2.5GB.
2K is exactly 25% of the memory requirements of 4K. 1080p is a little under 2K, and an identical file in 2K that consists of 2GB worth of memory would convert to 8GB worth of memory for 4K.
The specs make sense for the Wii U in comparison to the Xbox One and PS4 when you look at HD vs. 4K.

I hope you don't mind that I post a question myself? I just wondered if this gigantic update you need to download when first starting up the console is still in place! I may buy a Wii u late 2013, and I hope that at least by then that update is gone! And here's another question: Is there a site where I can find e-shop game file-sizes and save-file sizes? That way I know what I can download and buy at retail before my Wii u memory is full! Maybe I just download the small games first!