10 ms·

The Wii U was unfortunately not a very successful console, but I feel that it had plenty of power to make fantastic looking games and great experiences. It came

The Wii U was unfortunately not a very successful console, but I feel that it had plenty of power to make fantastic looking games and great experiences. It came out in a weird time for technology and Nintendo always uses slightly older hardware. As a homebrew device it is amazing. There are still exploits being found with a new, safe, simple method out now thanks to some crazy dedicated modders. There’s a whole homebrew sdk. The Wii U can also run Wii and GameCube games by reconfiguring the hardware (or some other sort of firmware voodoo). That’s three generations of video game libraries that can be explored on one console! Always felt like it deserved more popularity, but it couldn’t compete with the ps3/4 and Xbox 360/one.

chungy 4y ago
> I feel that it had plenty of power to make fantastic looking games and great experiences. It did, and it shows in that many of the top-selling games on Switch are ports of Wii U games.
- psychphysic 4y ago
  Breath of the Wild ran poorly on both platforms on release. Which surprised me, and undermined the power of the Switch. That said the Switch remains underpowered compared to contemporary game consoles.
  - bzzzt 4y ago
    Switch is not competing with PS/Xbox, but with mobile phones, tablets and portable consoles (including Nintendo's DS line). It's not underpowered for a battery powered game machine and has a standardised controller setup and easy docking as differentiators to other mobile devices.
    - amyjess 4y ago
      Unless you like JRPGs, in which case the Switch is a first-class console. Except for a few AAA-scale action RPGs that launch on PS4/5 (e.g. FF7R, upcoming FF16), the vast majority of JRPGs being released today come to Switch first. And when Switch exclusivity expires, many of them only get a PC release beyond that with PS4/5 and XB1/XSX releases simply never happening. For a good chunk of JRPG players, the question is "PS5 or Switch?". And if you're like me and specifically prefer turn-based JRPGs, you can forget about anything that launches as a Sony exclusive so that leaves the Switch as your #1 console. Though I guess the comparison to the DS works well here, as the DS was to platformers during its heyday what the Switch is to JRPGs now.
      - morelisp 4y ago
        The DS was also to JRPGs what the Switch is to them now! Contact, Dragon Quest IX, TWEWY, Strange Journey, Rune Factory - median and top 10 beats both the PSP and PS3.
        amyjess 4y ago
        There were some good JRPGs for the DS, but it was nowhere near as dominant as the Switch is now.. The PSP was a pretty strong contender, since it had the 2.5D Trails games, FF7 Crisis Core, and some of the best remakes of FF4, FFT, and Tactics Ogre. And PS3 got a lot of then-exclusives in mid-budget franchises that would be Switch games if they launched now, such as multiple Atelier trilogies and the first half of Trails of Cold Steel (and in fact they've all been ported to Switch). By comparison, current Atelier games now launch simultaneously on Switch and PS4 with PC ports following soon after, and the much-delayed English localizations of Trails now get cross-platform releases (Switch/PC/PS4 simultaneously). There was never a point during the DS's lifetime where you could say "except for a tiny handful of AAA-scale PS3 exclusives, every JRPG either got simultaneous DS/PS3 releases or was a DS exclusive", but it is the case that right now you can say "except for a tiny handful of AAA-scale PS4/5 exclusives, every JRPG either gets a simultaneous Switch/PS4 release or is a Switch exclusive". I'll also add that we're in a PC renaissance too; JRPGs on PC were virtually nonexistent during the PS3 and DS's heyday (unless you spoke enough Japanese to play unlocalized Falcom games), but now pretty much every JRPG that isn't a first-party Nintendo game gets a PC port, with even the timed Switch exclusives coming to PC after a few months to a year.
  - captainbland 4y ago
    Yeah but the PS5 gets horrible battery life and I need an IKEA furniture bag to transport it.
  - wodenokoto 4y ago
    It did? I never noticed performance issues with breath of the wild
    - matsemann 4y ago
      I bought a Switch the other week (OLED version, but same powered hardware I guess?) and am playing BotW just now. Two things that create some lag I've noticed: the forest area with the master sword, and when blowing up lots of explosive crates.
    - dagmx 4y ago
      Breath of the Wild is quite terrible on the Wii U. You get frame stutters when there’s more content on screen than just a few enemies and the resolution + aliasing are really hard on the eyes. Load times as well are longer. I stopped playing on Wii U and rebought it for the Switch where it’s significantly better.
    - gambiting 4y ago
      Did you never get to the forest where the Master Sword is? The entire area around it runs at about 10fps, on both the Switch and the Wii U.
causi 4y ago
The problem was that albatross of a gamepad. Not only did it have garbage battery life, but its presence led Nintendo to actively make games worse just to force mechanics onto the gamepad. Anyone else remember how godawful Star Fox Zero was, for absolutely no good reason?
- djur 4y ago
  I really liked the Wii U pad and used it a lot. The Switch is a more fully realized version of the concept, but it has its downsides -- it's not as comfortable to hold and play for long periods, and the lack of a two-screen mode makes certain concepts less effective. Mario Maker, for instance, worked perfectly with the Wii U and feels compromised on the Switch in comparison. The battery life was completely irrelevant to me. I just kept it plugged in.
  - ThatPlayer 4y ago
    Another example of the two-screen mode I liked was asymmetrical local multiplayer like Nintendo Land. It's not that it's impossible now, with two switches, but I haven't seen any games do it (with 4 players on a single switch, and 1 on the other).
    - morelisp 4y ago
      The Wii U's model doesn't really open up that many interesting asymmetrical multiplayer game designs, compared to multiple individual devices. There's a psychological effect of everyone being in the "same space" when most people are on one screen, but mechanically most of the time you'll want the opposite of what the Wii U can do - one person can see everything but everyone else can only see some limited view (c.f. Pac-Man Vs). With individual devices, you can make a game where N people see something different, or N-1 people see the same thing and 1 sees something different, or where N people see the same thing (and maybe also something different, c.f. the Four Swords GBAs+GC model). With the Wii U, you can make a game where everyone sees the same thing, or N-1 people see the same thing and 1 person sees that and something else. Even if you try to make the 1 person see something disjoint, it's too easy to cheat. And if you try to make everyone but one person see their own thing - too bad. I always wondered why they never built something to render simple (or even complex, it can't be that costly) scenes out to multiple connected (3)DSs - relatively everyone with a Wii U must have had at least one...
Synaesthesia 4y ago
I do think it led to the switch concept which has been very successful for Nintendo, my friend who had a wii U thought it was great, but just wanted the tablet to have better battery life.
- ThatPlayer 4y ago
  They actually sold a bigger battery at the time. Can't find much mention of it anywhere now, but Wikipedia lists it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_U_GamePad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_U_GamePad > LiPo 3.6 V DC 2550 mAh (upgrade WUP-013; 8 hours use)
- jollyllama 4y ago
  Agreed, the Wii U tablet controller was a proof of concept for the same form factor that would become the extremely successful Switch.
actionfromafar 4y ago
When it hit the stores, the reaction of most I know of was something like "I have a Wii already". So I think the naming was incredibly hampering. Especially considering a lot of Wii buyers were not exactly deep gamers, but very casual customers.
- psychphysic 4y ago
  It also promoted the pad beyond the console. Many weren't sure if it was a new pad for the original Wii.
  - mardifoufs 4y ago
    I didn't know that until this post lol. And it was released when I was 12 and actually into gaming. Now I find it weird that the "controller" is so weak that it can't do anything but stream from the console, it kind of make the portability useless.
    - actionfromafar 4y ago
      Screens were slightly less ubiquitous then. You could continue playing on the controller when dad switched the living room TV to some sports.
    - morelisp 4y ago
      Critically, it could stream something different than what the console was rendering to the TV. At the time it seemed Nintendo was hoping for the kind of design explosion the DS had early in its life, and a few titles trying such things were really good, but for many reasons it didn't stick the way the DS did.
    - Sakos 4y ago
      Asynchronous game design is something that holds a lot of promise. Traditionally, that was something reserved for online multiplayer in PC games. But suddenly it was possible to design local coop around one player interacting with the game in a different way than the others. The idea is still really cool, but I think most devs are unwilling to experiment with such a niche product.
Narann 4y ago
> Always felt like it deserved more popularity, but it couldn’t compete with the ps3/4 and Xbox 360/one. The Wii U marketing was a total disaster. Using the same name as a well established, casual platform, with a tiny suffix + pushing the "same gamepad compatibility" makes this hardware looks like an expensive "revised" version. I can't understand how Nintendo didn't catch on this.
- dm319 4y ago
  The number of people who say 'I thought the Wii U was a handheld?', made me realise how badly they messed up. Home console buyers didn't realise it was a console. Handheld buyers realised quickly it wasn't a handheld.
  - jacobr1 4y ago
    It also shows in the switch how much they learned their lesson.
    - jonny_eh 4y ago
      Indeed, I feel that the Switch wouldn't have been such a mega hit if not for the WiiU's failure.
    - fomine3 4y ago
      Switch is the perfect implementation of Wii + Wii U
microtonal 4y ago
It came out in a weird time for technology and Nintendo always uses slightly older hardware. I had a Playstation 2 and 3 before, but since we became parents, we wanted something family-friendly. We seriously considered a Wii U, but were totally put of by the Wii U controller, which seemed clunky, annoying, and expensive to replace in case it breaks. It was the primary reason we went for the XBox One that generation. We got a Switch pretty soon after it was released and love it (our daughter also has a Switch Lite).
- coldpie 4y ago
  > We seriously considered a Wii U, but were totally put off by the Wii U controller, which seemed clunky, annoying, and expensive to replace in case it breaks. You were right on all counts. It was a pretty terrible controller. Flimsy, heavy, way too big. And it was actually impossible to replace; they never offered replacement pads for sale, you had to buy a whole new console or find someone who fried their console and wanted to sell just a pad.
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  clunky I thought it was totally fine. I spent a lot of hours gaming on that thing. I did not find it too heavy and anecdotally my friends' kids didn't either. However, I can certainly understand that it looked massive and heavy. That was my assumption as well. Bit of a marketing issue there. annoying It was more useless than annoying. Some games used it in slightly awkward ways, sort of like the early DS days when devs were experimenting (and being forced/encouraged by Nintendo to experiment with) new forms of control. expensive to replace in case it breaks It was very durable in my experience. The screen is plastic, and ultimately I'd say it's just about exactly as durable as a DS or 3DS... after all, Nintendo knows how to build such things. But, once again, your assumption totally made sense. Another marketing issue. It was the primary reason we [passed on it] Me too. Then, a few years back, a friend gifted me one and I had a blast with it. Most of the best games wound up on the Switch though, so ultimately you did not miss out.
DCKing 4y ago
> Nintendo always uses slightly older hardware. This is a bit of a meme, but it isn't generally true. The Nintendo 64 and GameCube were pretty cutting edge in their day. At the time the Nintendo Switch released, the Tegra X1 was still about as cutting edge as mobile GPUs came (in early 2016). What Nintendo is about - to a fault, some would argue - is cost cutting. Sometimes that means they use older stuff, but using older stuff isn't always the best cost cutting balance to strike. The article even notes this: > To be fair, it’s known that Nintendo’s choices are not always based on ‘cutting-edginess’ but on cost and supply.
- croak3r 4y ago
  The gamecube is 20 years old though and ever since then they've had the weakest hardware. I remember buying a Wii the month it released and being pretty disappointed at how bad the graphics looked.
  - jonny_eh 4y ago
    The Switch's mobile chipset was basically as bleeding edge as you could buy at the time. But it was a mobile chipset, so couldn't compete with a PS4 or Xbox.
    - astrange 4y ago
      The main problem is that even if it was cutting edge at the time, they can't or won't upgrade it. Of course iPads, which do upgrade their SoC every year, aren't as good at playing games.
      - jonny_eh 4y ago
        A big issue with the annual upgrade cycle is that it becomes much harder for devs to test their games due to hardware fragmentation.
- TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
  I still wonder if the 4KiB texture cache in the N64 was a cost-cutting decision. It totally defined the look of N64 games.
eru 4y ago
> It came out in a weird time for technology and Nintendo always uses slightly older hardware. Not always. The N64, for example, tried to be cutting edge.
jrootabega 4y ago
I think if they had released a Zelda game meant for that platform, like everyone who bought one expected them to, they would have had a better time.
- astura 4y ago
  Breath of the Wild was originally intended to be a Wii U exclusive, with a 2015 release date[1], but it didn't end up that way. The developers had some Wii U Gamepad features in early prototypes but found that looking between the gamepad and TV was distracting and axed them. [1] https://www.polygon.com/2015/3/27/8303247/the-legend-of-zelda-wii-u-delayed-beyond-2015 https://www.polygon.com/2015/3/27/8303247/the-legend-of-zeld...
  - jrootabega 4y ago
    And I think that was a bad decision and a soft betrayal of Wii U owners.
    - BuckRogers 4y ago
      I still have my Wii U plugged in and while that may be true, they made up for it by never charging for online service. No-charge access to Mario Kart 8 multiplayer has been great.
  - anotherman554 4y ago
    I feel pretty confident the Sheika slate was designed around the Wii U tablet and they only cut that aspect of the game to make the Nintendo Switch version look just as good as the Wii U version. If a Nintendo employee claimed it was to avoid distraction I'm pretty confident they are lying.
    - jrootabega 4y ago
      i.e. "saving face".
    - astura 4y ago
duxup 4y ago
> Always felt like it deserved more popularity I owned a Wii and loved it. To this day I don’t know what the selling point(s) of the Wii U were supposed to be. I just don’t think it was marketed well.
weberer 4y ago
The Wii U was the first Nintendo console that I had no "must have" game at launch. Gamecube had Melee, Wii had Twilight Princess, Switch had Breath of the Wild. But there was nothing on the Wii U for a whole year until Pikmin 3 and Super Mario 3D World. It squandered their one year head start.
herbst 4y ago
I bought a Wii U (my only console) just a few months ago. It's still amazing, you can download all available games for free directly from Nintendo. The controller is meh, however most games also let you play with a pro controller. The screen on the Wii U brick is barely used. And if you have a party or so just let them bring their Wii controllers, all the multiplayer games support them. If you are not a classic gamer but are looking for some gaming fun it might still is the perfect console for you
- RajT88 4y ago
  > you can download all available games for free directly from Nintendo Eh? Like Wii Shop games which are WiiU only are all free? If that's the case, I might dig mine out of the closet.
  - philistine 4y ago
    No you can’t. This comment is wrong. The Wii U is actually closing its shop and you can’t add funds to an account anymore. https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/57847/~/wii-u-%26-nintendo-3ds-eshop-discontinuation-q%26a https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/...
    - DCKing 4y ago
      The parent comment isn't wrong, but it's referring to piracy. The Wii U has been blown wide open such that tools exist that allow you to pirate games by downloading them directly from Nintendo's servers, essentially giving you free eShop downloads. Every game that's available for the Wii U digitally, is available for a pirated download. Straight from Nintendo.
      - imran0 4y ago
        >Every game that's available for the Wii U digitally, is available for a pirated download. Straight from Nintendo. Oh wow, how did Nintendo manage to be this stupid?
philistine 4y ago
For me, the only use was buying one for cheap right after the Switch came out. Everybody and heir mother was getting rid of their games, so everything could be had for cheap (Nintendo cheap).
vanderZwan 4y ago
Can you point me to more information about the GameCube part? Speaking as an owner of an almost broken down GC with a large library, and a very functional Wii U with a smaller one.
faeriechangling 4y ago
I just think that without the draw of the motion controllers, the Wii U screen just really wasn't good enough to make the console worth using. The Nintendo switch was brilliant, you just had to think like a 13 year old to understand why that was always going to sell like gangbusters. The games library was just too weak honestly, I think that was the main thing. The software problems were in large part caused by Nintendo under-speccing its machines catching up to it. Multiplatform's were particularly adversely affected. All in all you were better off buying a PS4 honestly.

chungy 4y ago

> I feel that it had plenty of power to make fantastic looking games and great experiences. It did, and it shows in that many of the top-selling games on Switch are ports of Wii U games.

psychphysic 4y ago
Breath of the Wild ran poorly on both platforms on release. Which surprised me, and undermined the power of the Switch. That said the Switch remains underpowered compared to contemporary game consoles.
- bzzzt 4y ago
  Switch is not competing with PS/Xbox, but with mobile phones, tablets and portable consoles (including Nintendo's DS line). It's not underpowered for a battery powered game machine and has a standardised controller setup and easy docking as differentiators to other mobile devices.
  - amyjess 4y ago
    Unless you like JRPGs, in which case the Switch is a first-class console. Except for a few AAA-scale action RPGs that launch on PS4/5 (e.g. FF7R, upcoming FF16), the vast majority of JRPGs being released today come to Switch first. And when Switch exclusivity expires, many of them only get a PC release beyond that with PS4/5 and XB1/XSX releases simply never happening. For a good chunk of JRPG players, the question is "PS5 or Switch?". And if you're like me and specifically prefer turn-based JRPGs, you can forget about anything that launches as a Sony exclusive so that leaves the Switch as your #1 console. Though I guess the comparison to the DS works well here, as the DS was to platformers during its heyday what the Switch is to JRPGs now.
    - morelisp 4y ago
      The DS was also to JRPGs what the Switch is to them now! Contact, Dragon Quest IX, TWEWY, Strange Journey, Rune Factory - median and top 10 beats both the PSP and PS3.
      - amyjess 4y ago
        There were some good JRPGs for the DS, but it was nowhere near as dominant as the Switch is now.. The PSP was a pretty strong contender, since it had the 2.5D Trails games, FF7 Crisis Core, and some of the best remakes of FF4, FFT, and Tactics Ogre. And PS3 got a lot of then-exclusives in mid-budget franchises that would be Switch games if they launched now, such as multiple Atelier trilogies and the first half of Trails of Cold Steel (and in fact they've all been ported to Switch). By comparison, current Atelier games now launch simultaneously on Switch and PS4 with PC ports following soon after, and the much-delayed English localizations of Trails now get cross-platform releases (Switch/PC/PS4 simultaneously). There was never a point during the DS's lifetime where you could say "except for a tiny handful of AAA-scale PS3 exclusives, every JRPG either got simultaneous DS/PS3 releases or was a DS exclusive", but it is the case that right now you can say "except for a tiny handful of AAA-scale PS4/5 exclusives, every JRPG either gets a simultaneous Switch/PS4 release or is a Switch exclusive". I'll also add that we're in a PC renaissance too; JRPGs on PC were virtually nonexistent during the PS3 and DS's heyday (unless you spoke enough Japanese to play unlocalized Falcom games), but now pretty much every JRPG that isn't a first-party Nintendo game gets a PC port, with even the timed Switch exclusives coming to PC after a few months to a year.
- captainbland 4y ago
  Yeah but the PS5 gets horrible battery life and I need an IKEA furniture bag to transport it.
- wodenokoto 4y ago
  It did? I never noticed performance issues with breath of the wild
  - matsemann 4y ago
    I bought a Switch the other week (OLED version, but same powered hardware I guess?) and am playing BotW just now. Two things that create some lag I've noticed: the forest area with the master sword, and when blowing up lots of explosive crates.
  - dagmx 4y ago
    Breath of the Wild is quite terrible on the Wii U. You get frame stutters when there’s more content on screen than just a few enemies and the resolution + aliasing are really hard on the eyes. Load times as well are longer. I stopped playing on Wii U and rebought it for the Switch where it’s significantly better.
  - gambiting 4y ago
    Did you never get to the forest where the Master Sword is? The entire area around it runs at about 10fps, on both the Switch and the Wii U.

causi 4y ago

The problem was that albatross of a gamepad. Not only did it have garbage battery life, but its presence led Nintendo to actively make games worse just to force mechanics onto the gamepad. Anyone else remember how godawful Star Fox Zero was, for absolutely no good reason?

djur 4y ago
I really liked the Wii U pad and used it a lot. The Switch is a more fully realized version of the concept, but it has its downsides -- it's not as comfortable to hold and play for long periods, and the lack of a two-screen mode makes certain concepts less effective. Mario Maker, for instance, worked perfectly with the Wii U and feels compromised on the Switch in comparison. The battery life was completely irrelevant to me. I just kept it plugged in.
- ThatPlayer 4y ago
  Another example of the two-screen mode I liked was asymmetrical local multiplayer like Nintendo Land. It's not that it's impossible now, with two switches, but I haven't seen any games do it (with 4 players on a single switch, and 1 on the other).
  - morelisp 4y ago
    The Wii U's model doesn't really open up that many interesting asymmetrical multiplayer game designs, compared to multiple individual devices. There's a psychological effect of everyone being in the "same space" when most people are on one screen, but mechanically most of the time you'll want the opposite of what the Wii U can do - one person can see everything but everyone else can only see some limited view (c.f. Pac-Man Vs). With individual devices, you can make a game where N people see something different, or N-1 people see the same thing and 1 sees something different, or where N people see the same thing (and maybe also something different, c.f. the Four Swords GBAs+GC model). With the Wii U, you can make a game where everyone sees the same thing, or N-1 people see the same thing and 1 person sees that and something else. Even if you try to make the 1 person see something disjoint, it's too easy to cheat. And if you try to make everyone but one person see their own thing - too bad. I always wondered why they never built something to render simple (or even complex, it can't be that costly) scenes out to multiple connected (3)DSs - relatively everyone with a Wii U must have had at least one...

Synaesthesia 4y ago

I do think it led to the switch concept which has been very successful for Nintendo, my friend who had a wii U thought it was great, but just wanted the tablet to have better battery life.

ThatPlayer 4y ago
They actually sold a bigger battery at the time. Can't find much mention of it anywhere now, but Wikipedia lists it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_U_GamePad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_U_GamePad > LiPo 3.6 V DC 2550 mAh (upgrade WUP-013; 8 hours use)
jollyllama 4y ago
Agreed, the Wii U tablet controller was a proof of concept for the same form factor that would become the extremely successful Switch.

actionfromafar 4y ago

When it hit the stores, the reaction of most I know of was something like "I have a Wii already". So I think the naming was incredibly hampering. Especially considering a lot of Wii buyers were not exactly deep gamers, but very casual customers.

psychphysic 4y ago
It also promoted the pad beyond the console. Many weren't sure if it was a new pad for the original Wii.
- mardifoufs 4y ago
  I didn't know that until this post lol. And it was released when I was 12 and actually into gaming. Now I find it weird that the "controller" is so weak that it can't do anything but stream from the console, it kind of make the portability useless.
  - actionfromafar 4y ago
    Screens were slightly less ubiquitous then. You could continue playing on the controller when dad switched the living room TV to some sports.
  - morelisp 4y ago
    Critically, it could stream something different than what the console was rendering to the TV. At the time it seemed Nintendo was hoping for the kind of design explosion the DS had early in its life, and a few titles trying such things were really good, but for many reasons it didn't stick the way the DS did.
  - Sakos 4y ago
    Asynchronous game design is something that holds a lot of promise. Traditionally, that was something reserved for online multiplayer in PC games. But suddenly it was possible to design local coop around one player interacting with the game in a different way than the others. The idea is still really cool, but I think most devs are unwilling to experiment with such a niche product.

Narann 4y ago

> Always felt like it deserved more popularity, but it couldn’t compete with the ps3/4 and Xbox 360/one. The Wii U marketing was a total disaster. Using the same name as a well established, casual platform, with a tiny suffix + pushing the "same gamepad compatibility" makes this hardware looks like an expensive "revised" version. I can't understand how Nintendo didn't catch on this.

dm319 4y ago
The number of people who say 'I thought the Wii U was a handheld?', made me realise how badly they messed up. Home console buyers didn't realise it was a console. Handheld buyers realised quickly it wasn't a handheld.
- jacobr1 4y ago
  It also shows in the switch how much they learned their lesson.
  - jonny_eh 4y ago
    Indeed, I feel that the Switch wouldn't have been such a mega hit if not for the WiiU's failure.
  - fomine3 4y ago
    Switch is the perfect implementation of Wii + Wii U

microtonal 4y ago

It came out in a weird time for technology and Nintendo always uses slightly older hardware. I had a Playstation 2 and 3 before, but since we became parents, we wanted something family-friendly. We seriously considered a Wii U, but were totally put of by the Wii U controller, which seemed clunky, annoying, and expensive to replace in case it breaks. It was the primary reason we went for the XBox One that generation. We got a Switch pretty soon after it was released and love it (our daughter also has a Switch Lite).

coldpie 4y ago
> We seriously considered a Wii U, but were totally put off by the Wii U controller, which seemed clunky, annoying, and expensive to replace in case it breaks. You were right on all counts. It was a pretty terrible controller. Flimsy, heavy, way too big. And it was actually impossible to replace; they never offered replacement pads for sale, you had to buy a whole new console or find someone who fried their console and wanted to sell just a pad.
JohnBooty 4y ago
clunky I thought it was totally fine. I spent a lot of hours gaming on that thing. I did not find it too heavy and anecdotally my friends' kids didn't either. However, I can certainly understand that it looked massive and heavy. That was my assumption as well. Bit of a marketing issue there. annoying It was more useless than annoying. Some games used it in slightly awkward ways, sort of like the early DS days when devs were experimenting (and being forced/encouraged by Nintendo to experiment with) new forms of control. expensive to replace in case it breaks It was very durable in my experience. The screen is plastic, and ultimately I'd say it's just about exactly as durable as a DS or 3DS... after all, Nintendo knows how to build such things. But, once again, your assumption totally made sense. Another marketing issue. It was the primary reason we [passed on it] Me too. Then, a few years back, a friend gifted me one and I had a blast with it. Most of the best games wound up on the Switch though, so ultimately you did not miss out.

DCKing 4y ago

> Nintendo always uses slightly older hardware. This is a bit of a meme, but it isn't generally true. The Nintendo 64 and GameCube were pretty cutting edge in their day. At the time the Nintendo Switch released, the Tegra X1 was still about as cutting edge as mobile GPUs came (in early 2016). What Nintendo is about - to a fault, some would argue - is cost cutting. Sometimes that means they use older stuff, but using older stuff isn't always the best cost cutting balance to strike. The article even notes this: > To be fair, it’s known that Nintendo’s choices are not always based on ‘cutting-edginess’ but on cost and supply.

croak3r 4y ago
The gamecube is 20 years old though and ever since then they've had the weakest hardware. I remember buying a Wii the month it released and being pretty disappointed at how bad the graphics looked.
- jonny_eh 4y ago
  The Switch's mobile chipset was basically as bleeding edge as you could buy at the time. But it was a mobile chipset, so couldn't compete with a PS4 or Xbox.
  - astrange 4y ago
    The main problem is that even if it was cutting edge at the time, they can't or won't upgrade it. Of course iPads, which do upgrade their SoC every year, aren't as good at playing games.
    - jonny_eh 4y ago
      A big issue with the annual upgrade cycle is that it becomes much harder for devs to test their games due to hardware fragmentation.
TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
I still wonder if the 4KiB texture cache in the N64 was a cost-cutting decision. It totally defined the look of N64 games.

eru 4y ago

> It came out in a weird time for technology and Nintendo always uses slightly older hardware. Not always. The N64, for example, tried to be cutting edge.

jrootabega 4y ago

I think if they had released a Zelda game meant for that platform, like everyone who bought one expected them to, they would have had a better time.

astura 4y ago
Breath of the Wild was originally intended to be a Wii U exclusive, with a 2015 release date[1], but it didn't end up that way. The developers had some Wii U Gamepad features in early prototypes but found that looking between the gamepad and TV was distracting and axed them. [1] https://www.polygon.com/2015/3/27/8303247/the-legend-of-zelda-wii-u-delayed-beyond-2015 https://www.polygon.com/2015/3/27/8303247/the-legend-of-zeld...
- jrootabega 4y ago
  And I think that was a bad decision and a soft betrayal of Wii U owners.
  - BuckRogers 4y ago
    I still have my Wii U plugged in and while that may be true, they made up for it by never charging for online service. No-charge access to Mario Kart 8 multiplayer has been great.
- anotherman554 4y ago
  I feel pretty confident the Sheika slate was designed around the Wii U tablet and they only cut that aspect of the game to make the Nintendo Switch version look just as good as the Wii U version. If a Nintendo employee claimed it was to avoid distraction I'm pretty confident they are lying.
  - jrootabega 4y ago
    i.e. "saving face".
  - astura 4y ago

duxup 4y ago

> Always felt like it deserved more popularity I owned a Wii and loved it. To this day I don’t know what the selling point(s) of the Wii U were supposed to be. I just don’t think it was marketed well.

weberer 4y ago

The Wii U was the first Nintendo console that I had no "must have" game at launch. Gamecube had Melee, Wii had Twilight Princess, Switch had Breath of the Wild. But there was nothing on the Wii U for a whole year until Pikmin 3 and Super Mario 3D World. It squandered their one year head start.

herbst 4y ago

I bought a Wii U (my only console) just a few months ago. It's still amazing, you can download all available games for free directly from Nintendo. The controller is meh, however most games also let you play with a pro controller. The screen on the Wii U brick is barely used. And if you have a party or so just let them bring their Wii controllers, all the multiplayer games support them. If you are not a classic gamer but are looking for some gaming fun it might still is the perfect console for you

RajT88 4y ago
> you can download all available games for free directly from Nintendo Eh? Like Wii Shop games which are WiiU only are all free? If that's the case, I might dig mine out of the closet.
- philistine 4y ago
  No you can’t. This comment is wrong. The Wii U is actually closing its shop and you can’t add funds to an account anymore. https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/57847/~/wii-u-%26-nintendo-3ds-eshop-discontinuation-q%26a https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/...
  - DCKing 4y ago
    The parent comment isn't wrong, but it's referring to piracy. The Wii U has been blown wide open such that tools exist that allow you to pirate games by downloading them directly from Nintendo's servers, essentially giving you free eShop downloads. Every game that's available for the Wii U digitally, is available for a pirated download. Straight from Nintendo.
    - imran0 4y ago
      >Every game that's available for the Wii U digitally, is available for a pirated download. Straight from Nintendo. Oh wow, how did Nintendo manage to be this stupid?

philistine 4y ago

For me, the only use was buying one for cheap right after the Switch came out. Everybody and heir mother was getting rid of their games, so everything could be had for cheap (Nintendo cheap).

vanderZwan 4y ago

Can you point me to more information about the GameCube part? Speaking as an owner of an almost broken down GC with a large library, and a very functional Wii U with a smaller one.

faeriechangling 4y ago

I just think that without the draw of the motion controllers, the Wii U screen just really wasn't good enough to make the console worth using. The Nintendo switch was brilliant, you just had to think like a 13 year old to understand why that was always going to sell like gangbusters. The games library was just too weak honestly, I think that was the main thing. The software problems were in large part caused by Nintendo under-speccing its machines catching up to it. Multiplatform's were particularly adversely affected. All in all you were better off buying a PS4 honestly.