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Yesterday wasn't necessarily full of happy coverage for the Wii U, such as the grisly news that the Xbox One is already close to passing the Wii U's lifetime-to-date sales in the UK. After plenty of happy Super Mario 3D World vibes, there's been some renewed caution and doubt over its power to lead a Wii U revival in the face of strong launch sales for its latest competitors.

And so, to show that there is still positivity out in the gaming aether and within the mainstream press, we'll point you to this rather positive piece posted in the New York Times, which comes with the tagline "Super Mario 3D World Could Make the Wii U Popular".

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It's actually a balanced piece that does highlight issues and concerns for the Wii U — it mentions poor sales to date and a games library lacking some major and critically acclaimed multi-platform releases — yet ultimately makes the point that, against the launch libraries of the PS4 and Xbox One, the writer's personal view is that the Wii U has the season's one must have game.

But the Wii U is also the only new console with a video game worth playing. Super Mario 3D World, which went on sale Friday, is the best Mario game in years. It’s not just the best game for the Wii U, it’s the most entertaining game that has been released this fall for any system. (To a calendar pedant, Grand Theft Auto V went on sale in the summer.)

...One great game won’t save a console. There are other good Wii U titles, but the console’s lineup is still pretty thin, especially in comparison to Nintendo’s own hand-held 3DS, which has shipped almost 35 million units worldwide in its two and a half years on the market, including more than 11 million in the United States.

If the Wii U is your only console, you still can’t play the rest of the this year’s best games, including Grand Theft Auto V, BioShock Infinite, Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, The Last of Us and Gone Home. You would need at least two more machines to play all of those.

But for the first time, you need a Wii U to play one of the year’s best video games. For beleaguered Wii U owners, that’s probably enough.

The full article contains plenty of detailed praise for Super Mario 3D World, but editorials such as this — while we're still in the depth of new console launches — all help spread a positive message for the Wii U. Super Mario 3D World may not be able to do all of the heavy lifting on its own, but it may yet bear a lot of weight for the system's cause.

[source nytimes.com, via gonintendo.com]