Wii U General Discussion

[Serebii]

Hell, even extra controllers are getting ridiculously expensive now. At least with Nintendo's Wii Remote, you can get a game with it.

 

But I digress. Comparing prices is a dangerous topic. Value is a perceived thing...what is good value to some is a rip-off to another.

 

Though I say GAME's current deal is fantastic value.

[Hero-of-Time]

Yeah, let's look at it objectively

 

Wii U: £250. Contains: Wii U, Wii U GamePad, At least one full game. Free online

PS4: £350. Contains: PS4, One DS4, access to a few small games and apps on PSN. Further £40 a year needed for online.

 

I'd say the Wii U is better value, for sure, if you're a general consumer who doesn't care about specs. The Wii U is getting too much crap about its price. Yes, it's "underpowered", but come on. It's clearly worth that price, hence it being sold at a loss.

 

Wii U wasn't £250 at launch. Unless you are just comparing the prices now.

 

Free online means squat when there aren't many online games to play on the platform. As for paying £40 to play online, you forget to mention that you get a bunch of free games every month for that price for a year. My PS+ on the PS3 paid for it self within a couple of months, what with Vita and PS3 games being offered.

[Sheikah]

That's the thing though. Developers who have fully commited themselves to Wii U development all agree that the specs aren't gimped or inferior, you just need to optimise for it and it'll produce a superior experience, as seen with NFSMWU

 

The specs of the Wii U are vastly inferior and it really has no chance of running the titles that the upcoming X1 and PS4 can without having its own gimped versions. Extra effort for an inferior version that will sell less. It's fucked, basically.

 

Eurogamer fully confirmed the innards of the Wii U:

It was ballpark speculation at the time based on what we had eyeballed at the event, but the final GPU is indeed a close match to the 4650/4670, albeit with a deficit in the number of texture-mapping units and a lower clock speed - 550MHz. AMD's RV770 hardware is well documented so with these numbers we can now, categorically, finally rule out any next-gen pretensions for the Wii U - the GCN hardware in Durango and Orbis is in a completely different league.

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/df-hardware-wii-u-graphics-power-finally-revealed

Edited November 19, 2013 by Sheikah

[-Dem0-]

Nintendo attempting to clear the air.

 

[liger05]

Nintendo attempting to clear the air.

 

 

Will be interesting to see what they run over here.

[S.C.G]

For me it's simple...

 

Wii U = Nintendo games plus platform exclusives

PS4 = 'Multiformat' games plus platform exclusives

 

It's the only way to be completely catered for this 'generation' if you want to play 'everything'.

 

As for XBone... I will avoid buying it at all costs for now and will only consider it when it's less than £300 with a game and minus kinect 2.0/or if it's 'free' but otherwise I'm steering well clear, plus it has to actually have games that I want on it.

 

Nintendo and Sony both have games in development for their platforms which I want to play, it's that simple.

 

In the meantime, I'll be using my Wii U for Wii Fit inbetween the big releases, plus in the weeks when they actually add previously unreleased - e.g not on Wii/3DS - Virtual Console titles to the Wii U service, or when there's a genuine classic that begs to be revisited. : peace:

[Serebii]

Wii U wasn't £250 at launch. Unless you are just comparing the prices now.

 

Free online means squat when there aren't many online games to play on the platform. As for paying £40 to play online, you forget to mention that you get a bunch of free games every month for that price for a year. My PS+ on the PS3 paid for it self within a couple of months, what with Vita and PS3 games being offered.

That's a good point. I've been with Xbox Live for this gen so completely forgot about PS+'s bonus. That does make it a bit better

 

The specs of the Wii U are vastly inferior and it really has no chance of running the titles that the upcoming X1 and PS4 can without having its own gimped versions. Extra effort for an inferior version that will sell less. It's fucked, basically.

 

Eurogamer fully confirmed the innards of the Wii U:

 

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/df-hardware-wii-u-graphics-power-finally-revealed

I was speaking in reference to the 360 and PS3. Only an idiot would say the power is comparable to PS4/Xbone. We were discussing the third party games that have come

[Zechs Merquise]

How much is the PS4? I thought it was like £100 more expensive than Wii U. How was the Wii U overpriced compared to the PS4? A system that comes bundled with a tablet controller and a pro controller and backwards compatibility with games and controllers and free online. When you add all this up the PS4 is actually £100's more expensive. I was intrigued to watch the demo for the PS4 with the robots, which is only playable if you spend another £60 for the eyetoy. As much as Microsoft has been lambasted for it's launch, they have at least been honest. Sony have been quite sneaky/clever in not revealing a lot of stuff.

 

The Wii U launched at £300, at the time the best version of the XBOX was going out alongside it for £175 with Halo 4, Gears 3 and Froza as a bundle! Yet the Wii U wasn't being pushed and didn't offer any big advantages in the eyes of the consumer.

 

Sony on the other hand have successfully positioned their new console as a super powerful 'next gen' experience and priced it £100 cheaper than the XBO. What's more, it's only launched at £50 more than the Wii U at launch.

 

I love my Wii U (look at my previous posts to see how many games I've got for it) but I can acknowledge that Nintendo released a system that looked very expensive to the average consumer. Especially as it was coming off the back of the Wii which came out bundled with a game for £175 - a bargain price and within the impulse buy range.

 

Nintendo's strength in the console market is clear - affordable hardware, accessible software that appeals to a different and wider audience, this coupled with a heavy advertising and marketing campaign that paints the system as a family console, often with well known celebs, is a winner. They have clearly failed to replicate that winning formula and paid the price.

[Wii]

Nintendo attempting to clear the air.

 

 

Wii U - "The Pitch" Commercial: Kids Edition

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=QsbeQeiwW9o

 

*cough*

[Sheikah]

That's a good point. I've been with Xbox Live for this gen so completely forgot about PS+'s bonus. That does make it a bit better

 

 

I was speaking in reference to the 360 and PS3. Only an idiot would say the power is comparable to PS4/Xbone. We were discussing the third party games that have come

 

You said that developers commented that Wii U titles just needed optimising, in response to my post that clearly said X1 and PS4 (not 360/PS3). Go back and look.

 

It's a silly thing to remark upon anyway - PS3 and 360 have maybe 9-12 months more of receiving most decent games that get released. You're basically arguing that the Wii U can compete with platforms that aren't too far from being retired. The specs of the Wii U have totally excluded it from many future multiplat releases. It's entirely Nintendo's fault and I think you should stop trying to defend them and blame developers at every turn.

[-Dem0-]

*cough*

 

Yeah sorry. I don't visit this thread much and only came across this today after watching a different video.

 

This one to be exact.

 

[Dcubed]

Dreamcast western launch will never be beaten.

 

Including that with all the other launches is such a cheat! (in Japan it launched a full whopping year before it came out in the west - meaning that the western launch consisted of both the 1st AND the 2nd wave of software); always annoys me when people keep saying that it was the best console launch ever when it shouldn't really count...

 

Discounting the Dreamcast's western launch, the Gamecube undoubtedly had (by a country mile!) the best launch of any console. Luigi's Mansion, Wave Race BS, Rogue Squadron 2, Super Monkey Ball - all exclusive and all on day one (with SSBM and Pikmin just one month afterwards - now THAT's a launch window!)

 

I suppose the moral of the story though is that the quality of a launch lineup means jack shit in regards to the success of a console; be its launch or beyond. The most successful consoles of all time (excluding the Wii) all had piss poor launch lineups. They sold because they had all the mindshare, either from coming off the back of rip-roaring success (PS2) or from their competitors flopping out of the gate (PS1).

 

The launch of a console has also never (with the sole exceptions of PS2 and GBA), been representative of the lifetime sales of a console. Consoles that we now think of as success stories once opened to mediocre numbers that later went on to rebound (DS, 3DS, Megadrive, PS1), started off strong and then rapidly tapered off towards the end (Wii, N64) or perhaps started off mediocre and then got second winds from various unforseable things that revived their fortunes (360 - Kinect, PS3 - price drop/remodel/rebranding, PSP - Monster Hunter).

 

That being said, we've never seen a failure of this magnetude (Wii U) later go on to rebound and the PS4's launch is closely mimicking the PS2's so I'm not expecting things to change - but who knows? There's a first time for everything!

Edited November 19, 2013 by Dcubed

[Hero-of-Time]

Discounting the Dreamcast's western launch, the Gamecube undoubtedly had (by a country mile!) the best launch of any console. Luigi's Mansion, Wave Race BS, Rogue Squadron 2, Super Monkey Ball - all exclusive and all on day one (with SSBM and Pikmin just one month afterwards - now THAT's a launch window!)

 

I was just talking to one of my brothers this morning about the Cube launch. At the moment he's going back and forth as to whether to get a XBOne on Friday and was saying how he has never got a console at launch day other than the Gamecube. Rogue Squadron 2 was what hooked him and he never looked back.

[liger05]

Including that with all the other launches is such a cheat! (in Japan it launched a full whopping year before it came out in the west - meaning that the western launch consisted of both the 1st AND the 2nd wave of software); always annoys me when people keep saying that it was the best console launch ever when it shouldn't really count...

 

Discounting the Dreamcast's western launch, the Gamecube undoubtedly had (by a country mile!) the best launch of any console. Luigi's Mansion, Wave Race BS, Rogue Squadron 2, Super Monkey Ball - all exclusive and all on day one (with SSBM and Pikmin just one month afterwards - now THAT's a launch window!)

 

I suppose the moral of the story though is that the quality of a launch lineup means jack shit in regards to the success of a console; be its launch or beyond. The most successful consoles of all time (excluding the Wii) all had piss poor launch lineups. They sold because they had all the mindshare, either from coming off the back of rip-roaring success (PS2) or from their competitors flopping out of the gate (PS1).

 

The launch of a console has also never (with the sole exceptions of PS2 and GBA), been representative of the lifetime sales of a console. Consoles that we now think of as success stories once opened to mediocre numbers that later went on to rebound (DS, 3DS, Megadrive, PS1), started off strong and then rapidly tapered off towards the end (Wii, N64) or perhaps started off mediocre and then got second winds that revived their fortunes (360, PS3, PSP).

 

That being said, we've never seen a failure of this magnetude (Wii U) later go on to rebound and the PS4's launch is closely mimicking the PS2's so I'm not expecting things to change - but who knows? There's a first time for everything!

 

I don’t think it matters. When the DC was available to western consumers it launched with a lineup which wont be rivalled even though the Cube's was impressive. If anything you could say Sega made the right decision to delay the western launch.

 

Back then its not like it was uncommon to launch in Japan first and then the West months later. They did the same with the Saturn with a 6 month gap and the even the Cube has a 6 month gap between the Japanese and EU release. The PlayStation one launched in Japan and then nearly a year later in the West.

[Fused King]

Have you played Hotel Dusk yet?

 

Why yes. Yes I have. Last Window as well!

 

I still mourn the fact that Cing is gone

[Wii]

How much is the PS4? I thought it was like £100 more expensive than Wii U. How was the Wii U overpriced compared to the PS4? A system that comes bundled with a tablet controller and a pro controller and backwards compatibility with games and controllers and free online. When you add all this up the PS4 is actually £100's more expensive. I was intrigued to watch the demo for the PS4 with the robots, which is only playable if you spend another £60 for the eyetoy. As much as Microsoft has been lambasted for it's launch, they have at least been honest. Sony have been quite sneaky/clever in not revealing a lot of stuff.

 

You can turn it the other way too. The pro controller only comes in limited bundles. With the PS4 you get a console that is future proof, will get most if not all 3rd party support, better online infrastructure, a blu-ray player. Then there's the memory, PS4's memory will last a lot longer than Wii U's paltry 32GB. That's another outlay of money waiting to happen.

 

I'm just saying, I don't like Sony nor Microsoft for that matter and have no intention of buying their consoles, never have, never will. So it annoys me all the more that Nintendo have f#%ked up so badly. I said before it launched that it was doomed and I got an almighty backlash but look what's happened. I've bought every console at launch up to and including Wii U but that won't happen next time. Nintendo have gotten lazy, they love money for nothing. Wii Play and Wii Sports, basically tech demos that raked in the money for relatively little effort. They thought they'd just repeat the cycle. That ship has sailed for many reasons.

 

People's list of3rd party games here are ports, some extremely old ports. It's great if you're Nintendo only as it's your 1st time around experiencing them but that's not going to entice the hardcore market. Yes there's been some exclusive 3rd party games, too few though. Even their 1st party line-up has severe faults.

 

Nintendo's advertising is dreadful, always has been. I see a fair few 3DS ads on mainstream channels. Last Wii U I seen was back in July for Pikmin 3 and the only other 2 games I seen ads for were Disney Infinity and the one with ZombiU. I never see any ads. Over the whole year I've seen less than 20 maybe much less. I hear they're on Disney Channel and Nick Jr. So Nintendo are advertising Zelda WW HD and W101 to five year olds? Their ads for the Wii Uconsole itself are awful, truly skin crawling stuff. A cross between Barney the dinosaur, Fisher-Price and a Kinder ad. Sickening. I have seen countless ads for PS4 and XBONE and they're good ads with proper budgets and I see why they appeal and work. Light years apart in every regard.

 

I'll stop now.

[Serebii]

So, away from the general pissing and bitching of all of us about consoles, this rating showed up

 

 

As did this

[liger05]

So, away from the general pissing and bitching of all of us about consoles, this rating showed up

 

 

As did this

 

A nes compilation I can play on the 3DS would be nice. Mario All Stars please!!!

[Fused King]

STEELDIVER SUBWARS

 

So help me god if this replaces Advance Wars, so help me god.

[-Dem0-]

STEELDIVER SUBWARS

 

So help me god if this replaces Advance Wars, so help me god.

 

I'm pretty sure that's just the name of their Free-to-play version of Steel Diver for the 3DS.

 

http://www.classification.gov.au/Pages/View.aspx?sid=4GhKB4XJ%252fE62aYZB2EnA9Q%253d%253d&ncdctx=g0oqKCFEc7ra%2bs%2bp0QYyb%2b31SxsY%2b66M0PGsnpmS4oj6ovrE42ieXeE0ZFozBmX3

[Fused King]

Oh yeah, right. That's a thing.

[liger05]

You can turn it the other way too. The pro controller only comes in limited bundles. With the PS4 you get a console that is future proof, will get most if not all 3rd party support, better online infrastructure, a blu-ray player. Then there's the memory, PS4's memory will last a lot longer than Wii U's paltry 32GB. That's another outlay of money waiting to happen.

 

http://allthingsd.com/20131119/teardown-shows-sonys-playstation-4-costs-381-to-build/?mod=atd_homepage_carousel

 

When PlayStation 3 was first released by electronics giant Sony in 2006, it was sold at a loss with the hope of making money back on individual games.

 

That’s pretty close to what Sony is doing again with the PS4, although it’s not as extreme. At least that’s the finding of the research firm IHS, which will later today release the findings of a teardown analysis of the PS4 and the combined cost of the components used to build it.

 

AllThingsD got an early look at the analysis, in which the firm estimates the cost of those parts, plus what it costs to assemble them, at $381. That is only $18 shy of the PS4′s $399 retail price, leaving Sony little profit margin on the sale of the device itself.

 

Who said building a powerful console wasnt affordable? For what Nintendo paid to produce the Wii U they could of produced a better console.

[Zechs Merquise]

http://allthingsd.com/20131119/teardown-shows-sonys-playstation-4-costs-381-to-build/?mod=atd_homepage_carousel

 

Who said building a powerful console wasnt affordable? For what Nintendo paid to produce the Wii U they could of produced a better console.

 

You do realise that Sony don't get all of that? The retailer has to make a profit too!

 

There was a big discussion on this the other day on NeoGaf, Sony have already stated they are making a $60 loss per system at launch. They should easily recoup that though once they've sold a couple of games per console. Couple this with PSN+ now costing, that $60 isn't go to be a big problem.

[Hero-of-Time]

So, after having a look back at what others have played on during the first year of the Wii U's life ( still a week of so for us Euro peeps 1st anniversary ) I decided to check what i've been playing.

 

Retail

 

Nintendoland

Darksiders 2

Assassins Creed 3

Tank!Tank!Tank!

Tekken

Zombi U

New Super Mario Bros U

Call of Duty Black Ops 2

Call of Duty Ghosts

Monster Hunter Ultimate

Sonic Racing Transformed

Rayman Legends

Zelda: Wind Waker

Pikmin 3

Wonderful 101

Ninja Gaiden 3

Need for Speed

Mario & Sonic

New Super Luigi

Lego City Undercover

 

Digital

 

Earthbound

Megaman X

Megaman X 2

Super Mario World

Super Metroid

Super Ghouls and Ghosts

Pokemon Rumble

DuckTales

Balloon Fight

Donkey Kong

Mario and Yoshi

Zelda

Zelda II

Super Mario Bros 2

PunchOut

Wii Fit U

Kirby's Adventure

F-Zero

 

Not a bad list at all. I think it's a case of a lot of gamers worrying and complaining about the games they don't have instead of opening their eyes and seeing the games they do have.

 

When people say that the Wii U has no games it's as laughable as saying the Vita has no games. Many people said this about that handheld ( and still do ) yet I snapped one up around June/July time and have 16 retail games for the thing. I dunno, maybe i'm just not a picky gamer.

[liger05]

You do realise that Sony don't get all of that? The retailer has to make a profit too!

 

There was a big discussion on this the other day on NeoGaf, Sony have already stated they are making a $60 loss per system at launch. They should easily recoup that though once they've sold a couple of games per console. Couple this with PSN+ now costing, that $60 isn't go to be a big problem.

 

Of course I know that. When the wii u launched Reggie said they were making a profit when a game was sold.

 

Considering the tech its surprising they were making a loss on the hardware but as has been stated before the Gamepad is the albatross around the neck.

 

When the PS4 was first revealed people were saying how expensive it would be due to the tech ignoring that off the shelf parts are way cheaper than custom parts.

 

Nintendo could of built a more powerful console minus the gamepad and sold at the same price.