First off, this is NOT a hate thread. I'm a total Nintendo fanboy.

Looking back to the Wii...I ask myself how I did it. For six years, I had this console that did practically nothing. I got it at launch and had the very same console till the day I got my Wii U. I had a decent collection. Around 30 games (not including VC titles and WiiWare titles), though compared to GCN and even Wii U building towards 15 titles so far, I have to ask how I managed to be a Nintendo gamer. I didn't own a 360/PS3 (though I'd play with friends regularly on theirs) and marched on with my Wii.

At one point, I went almost two years without a new game because there weren't any worthwhile games coming out!

And here with the Wii U, with all of its cool little features and tools, I feel like these six years were a waste. Even with the Wii U's online connectivity paling to the power of its competing consoles, it's still so much better than the Wii. And that's sort of a big deal. Each console I've had (all of them, to be honest) have had something really memorable about them. I don't want the Wii to be my first console I could have passed on. Don't get me wrong. There were some GREAT games out. Say, 10 or so. In six years. Its new controller was indeed unique. But later copied and done better by competitors. Mario Kart Wii had great online...but even Mario Kart 7 is doing it better. The 3DS even has a better shop than the Wii.

Perhaps I'm being spoiled, but once I finish my backlog on VC games on Wii, I don't plan to go back to Wii Mode.

You all, as gamers, may have your opinion on the matter. I want to know what you think. The Wii U already has great potential to be the Wii's catch-up. Then again, Nintendo could go the route of Wii and leave it at what it is: basic, barebone.

Let me know.

Keep it classy!

The Wii had of course the Nintendo gems which gave it a lot of boost. And then hardcore gamers had to search to find anything good.

How did we survive? I didn't. But great first-party support and a few decent third-party titles treated those who did very nicely.

WiiWare and VC were complete jokes.

I almost went two years without a new wii game as well. There was that period of time where it got practically no first party titles. I was worried about the WiiU before the ND as well. Now I know it'll be fine though. But PunchOut, Smash Bros, and Radiant Dawn kept me going, even if I've beaten them all more times than any human being should ever. -.-

Because you didn't look hard enough. Poor use of internet.

The end.

I will say 2011 and parts of 2008 were still completely absurd and Wiiware was objectively a disaster.

I didn't. Got a Wii in '08...had a 360 by '09.

I never even had a Wii!
/thread

I kind of deviated from having only Nintendo games. As a result of that, I now have an Xbox 360 (well, I use that even less than my Wii) and I'm a huge Valve fan...
But as you can see from my picture, I'm trying to finish all of my good Wii games

I didn't from the start. Got a Xbox 360 a year or two before I bought a Wii, and I got a PS3 in 2009.

I got a Wii when it launched, and I've never owned a PS3 or 360 (trying to pay for two consoles per generation is too expensive for me).
I've always had a ton of free times (largely due to skipping school a lot) and spent most of that playing my Wii, yet I still never had the time to play through all the games I wanted to.
I still have Wii games I haven't even started just because I haven't been able to find the time.

For me, I suspect the Wii U could surpass what the Wii achieved if it keeps on the way it's going (Wind Waker and Monolith's game, and Monster Hunter), but it's still got quite a way to go because I had a lot of fond memories with my Wii.

With
Mario Galaxys
Smassh bros
Sonic Colors
DKCR
MHTri
Zelda
Kirbby
Xenoblade
Rayman
Mario
and others

How did you do that for 3 years?

Wow. You missed a lot of stuff you'd probably like.

Better go catch up on your backlog of amazing stuff.

I spent hundreds of hours playing Smash Bros. and Galaxy. And way too many hours playing Donkey Kong Country Returns.
I say we have had worse generations. I find the N64 a bad generation.

Aside from the Virtual Console, Nintendo's first party line up and a few worthwhile third party titles, the Nintendo Wii was very deprived of everything that makes a new generation console, exciting and, well, new.

Friend codes were an abomination no matter what way you look at it and at the time of its release, Iwata thought online gaming was irrelevant and thus, his company had very little involvement with online features in most of its developed and published software. Tacked on online multiplayer with Super Smash Bros. Brawl, tacked on leaderboards with Sin and Punishment 2, Metroid Prime Trilogy's tacked on whatever that was and so much lost potential multiplayer wise and so forth. Iwata was wrong. Very wrong.

WiiWare's size limit was ridiculous as was the lack of a traditional hard drive in the Wii making it a hassle to play larger downloaded games back-to-back. Nintendo released the SD card streaming feature a few years too late and the promise of simple features of DVD playback in later consoles were never met. The Wii cannot even play CDs for Buddha's sake.

So Nintendo had a lot going for it. Weak hardware (terribly weak), limited online services (Virtual Console was fine but what a wasted effort it is now), poor third party support (very difficult to program fir the Wii), casual approach was enormously stretched, developers and gamers turned away from Nintendo's newly found image and really, there's so many more reasons most of you already know.

Commercially, the Wii could have done so much better in terms of catering to both gaming crowds not just having its core focus on casuals. Let's just hope the Wii U can do what Wii couldn't.

I've got to agree with kkslider on this.

I'm not exclusively a Nintendo gamer, my roots are with PC actually.
You should play: Metroid Other M, AC: City Folk, Guitar Hero, Goldeneye, Metroid Prime (3), Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2...
... Punch-Out!!, NSMBW. Others.

Only had a Wii this generation because
A. I am too stubborn to let my parents pay for another console instead of me paying for it now
B. Most games I enjoy are on Nintendo
C. At the time i would of bought a ps3 but then 3ds was announced then Wii U and my money went there

No yeah I know. I'm gonna go int debt from how many Wii games I want to buy.

Looking back on the Wii, I really enjoyed it.

I'm glad to see everyone also had a hard time...

Well, that came out wrong, but you know I mean. Anyhoo, so far the Wii U has great software from both Nintendo and third party companies on their way, and with a better, though still lacking, online interface I have a feeling things will be better this generation. I mean, I'm typing this on my Wii U gamepad! The Internet Browser doesn't suck! The eShop is already LOADS better than the Wii Shop.

It can only get better from here.

I'd largely agree that outside of cool gimmicks and novelty of Nintendo doing new stuff (even if often worse than others) that Wii was horribly flawed as a console. But as soon as people say they didn't get a new game for nearly 2 years for reasons other than being poor, the problem is on them entirely. That doesn't even make sense from a Nintendo fanboy perspective. There is not anything too much beyond a 1 year period between Galaxy, Brawl, NSMBWii, Galaxy2, DKCR, Skyward Sword alone.