Randy Miller III

Yeah, so I made the dumb mistake of buying a Nintendo eShop card for 2000 points ($20), not realizing it couldn't be used for the Wii Shop...only the WiiU or the 3DS. Long shot, but is anyone willing to trade me for an equal or approximate amount of Wii Points? I bought it online so I'd rather not go through the return process if I don't have too. PMs appreciated!

XavierMike

I finished all of the challenges on NES Remix, so I started W101. I,m playing on normal. Third person action is my favorite genre, so my opinion might be skewed. I'm about 5 missions in. It's good. So far all of the Unite Morphs are working. I love the art design.

slop101

With the font at the art, that Insanity's Blade looks like a Ghosts & Goblins sequel. When's it come out?

clappj

You might be in luck. I believe I have a card that I could exchange with you. I'll check when I get home this afternoon.

DVDChris

wow, that's a really good deal on a Wii U bundle

fujishig

If it were easier to share digital games between systems I might have been tempted to buy a second one.

PerryD

I think this is the 8GB model, so you have to factor the cost of an added external drive to be able to download any games.

DVDChris

Can't you upgrade to a bigger SD card instead?

Michael Corvin

What games? Unless someone is planning on going all digital with the WiiU, 8GB should suffice for VC/arcade games.

DJariya

Is this console still regarded as a major flop for Nintendo? I see some of you here own the console but why is it regarded as such a bust? Was the game selection, graphics just not up to par with what people are expecting?

PerryD

That's probably true, you would have to avoid sales on Wii U titles like Monster Hunter, or free downloads like Wii Fit U, then you can be okay with 8GB. But I would just plan on spending more for the external drive.

Adam Tyner

Financially, it's a disaster. It's Nintendo's poorest selling console (unless you count the Virtual Boy), and at this point, it looks wildly unlikely that it'll even approach GameCube numbers, the bellwether mark for an unsuccessful Nintendo console.

Nintendo did basically zero marketing, the price of the system is offputting (in no small part due to the gamepad which isn't being taken advantage of in most Wii U games), there's essentially no third party support remaining at retail, and Nintendo has such an unreliable software pipeline that you can go half the year with 2 or 3 first/second party releases. It's a tiny, tiny trickle of games for a console a lot of people think is a Wii from 2006 with a gamepad peripheral. You could talk for hours about everything Nintendo did wrong.

On the other hand, I love the Wii U. Despite being underpowered compared to the competition, it's my favorite of the three new consoles. There are admittedly very few games on the horizon, but I'm extremely excited about nearly all of them. The gamepad, when it's used well, is a terrific controller, and it's more comfortable than you might think at first glance.

Drexl

Except that it actually has about 3GB of usable space. That's not much when the system is capable of larger indie titles like Trine 2 and Giana Sisters, not to mention patches of up to 1GB in size (Assassin's Creed IV).

XavierMike

Shovel knight looks great. I'm just deciding between 3DS and WiiU.

MoviePage

Adam covered most of the major points above, but there's also the fact that the PS4 has already outsold it in less than 4 months.

maxfisher

Is that correct? Compared to the Gamecube, it looks like it's hit about 27% globally and 20% in the US. Agree with everything else you say and it's definitely not off to even a good start, but unless Nintendo launches its next console early, I think it's likely it'll do GC numbers over a 5-year life cycle.

fujishig

Plus they were turning a profit on the system from day 1, right?

Adam Tyner

In terms of absolute numbers, without question.

In its first year, the GameCube moved 6.68 million units. The Wii U only sold around 4.3 million worldwide in its first year, giving the GameCube a 2.38 million console advantage. The Wii U sold around 2/3rds as many consoles as the GameCube did in its first year.

If you do a month-to-month comparison of that six month stretch where the Wii U only sold 460,000 consoles (outsold by the then-outmoded Wii!), the GameCube sold 2.8 million consoles.

With as lackluster as the Wii U's second Christmas was, there's no real chance it'll ever move as many consoles as the GameCube.

Lone Wolf

I have a question. I have the Energizer charging station for the Wii controllers and gamepad. I bought 2 more controllers so we can have up to four players or program 2 for the original Wii. I didn't move any of my downloads over to the Wii U. I'd rather not buy another charging station. Is there anywhere to buy just the battery packs? I checked Energizer's website, but I couldn't find anything.

argh923

I like my WiiU. I honestly do. I'm just stunned it's been out this long without a Mario Kart, Mario Party, Zelda, Metroid, Mario platformer (a la Mario 64/Sunshine/Galaxy), etc. It's like they want to fail.

Gizmo

Zelda is out. For many people, it's a "new" experience.

Metroid has never been a big seller, no matter how many Prime titles they could bump out.

No MK, "real" Mario, or Mario Party is a bit...weird.

argh923

There is no new Zelda game for WiiU.

Adam Tyner

With that mentality, why release any new games at all? It'd be a lot cheaper to just remaster/tweak old games and not bother with developing new ones. After all, those old games are "new" experiences to someone!

I didn't pick up Wind Waker for the GameCube. I'm very thankful it was brought back to life on the Wii U, and I love the holy hell out of it. That doesn't change the fact that there is no new Zelda game for the Wii U. (We're supposed to see one previewed at E3, though...)

XavierMike

I played through a couple more hours of W101 this weekend. I'm really liking it. The combo system takes a while to figure out. The game doesn't teach you how to block or dodge, you have to buy those abilities. It would easily piss lots of people off in the first hour, but there there is a deep action game who those can persevere.

mattysemo247

Thought this was an interesting article

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/nin.../1100-6418177/