Poll of the Day > the wii u was fucking amazing and the switch can't come close to it

(+) Yeah! (+)

that fuckin gamepad was the goddamn future

Sony seems to think so lol

I just re-hooked mine up, just to check it out. I should play Xenoblade Chronicles X at some point.

nah switch is pretty awesome.

wii-u was definitely hated more than it deserved to be though, was way better than people gave it credit for.

basically what Nade said. Wii U was indeed awesome, but Switch kinda blows it out of the water. There are only a few games I have on it that aren't available elsewhere. Although I do enjoy playing Pokemon Pinball Ruby and Sapphire a lot, that's for sure. my one major beef was them dropping the map/item selection on the gamepad for BotW, when it worked great for WW and TP.

I loved my Wii U, so many good games. Damn thing is a piece of shit though, it would just randomly turn off on me while playing it. I haven't had it hooked up in a few years, I'm assuming the power supply is dead. Xenoblade Chronicles X deserves a port/remake. Also I wish NES Remix would get ported to Switch.

I look back at some of the games I want to replay most... and many of them are on the Wii.

They weren't great the first time around, but man I wanna play them again

Mario Chase was the best game in the library

I understand why it was a flop, but I did really like mine, and the tiny handful of decent games it had were really quite good, and the rare game that did make full use of the gamepad did so amazingly well and in a way that no other system (except maybe the (3)DS) could emulate. The Switch definitely handles off-TV play better, though, and is overall a better system in pretty much every regard except the asynchronous multiplayer and QoL features that a second screen could provide, and the eShop UI.

WiiU had great games and that's all that matters to me. Gamepad was mostly wasted potential and the pricing and specs were pretty bad though.

I found out that my Wii U no longer connects to Wifi and no longer recognizes HDMI just yesterday after not using it for over a year. It literally died by sitting unused. Just another reason it was their worst console ever.

Is this a helly alt

faramir77 posted...

I found out that my Wii U no longer connects to Wifi and no longer recognizes HDMI just yesterday after not using it for over a year. It literally died by sitting unused. Just another reason it was their worst console ever.

Virtual Boy says hi!

Play that thing for a few hours and you can easily get a headache, they even warn people from playing it for long periods in the instruction manual.

Monopoman posted...

Virtual Boy says hi!

Play that thing for a few hours and you can easily get a headache, they even warn people from playing it for long periods in the instruction manual.

but the virtual boy laying in the scrapyard for 30 years.... STILL WORKS

Now is it worse to have a console that you want to work not work, or a console that you want not to work to work?

I like the Switch hardware better, but the Wii U firmware blows it out of the water. Nintendo took so many steps back with that one.

I love the Wii U. F*** everyone who didn't buy it.

baffling that i cant play Wind Waker or twilight Princess on the switch

that's becuause the switch isn't powerful enough to handle the sheer awesomititude and perfection that is wind waker

Lokarin posted...

but the virtual boy laying in the scrapyard for 30 years.... STILL WORKS

It probably doesn't, actually.

Virtual Boys had notoriously poor soldering for some of their screen connectors, so it's actually very common for one or both of the screens to be non-functional on most Virtual Boys these days, unless someone has taken it apart and repaired it.

Monopoman posted...

Play that thing for a few hours and you can easily get a headache, they even warn people from playing it for long periods in the instruction manual.

To be fair, they say that for literally every console.

Sonicplys posted...

I love the Wii U. F*** everyone who didn't buy it.

Reminder that more than half of the people who bought Wiis didn't buy any other games for it, and just played Wii Sports.

Zareth posted...

Is this a helly alt

Duh

Sonicplys posted...

I love the Wii U. F*** everyone who didn't buy it.

Now I'm even more glad I never bought it. Your despair brings me pleasure.

Zareth posted...

Reminder that more than half of the people who bought Wiis didn't buy any other games for it, and just played Wii Sports.

I've never seen any credible source for this claim.

How would you even gather that sort of data? The Wii didn't register games online or anything like that, so it would be impossible to tie game purchases to a specific console/owner.

Moreover, not counting Wii Sports, the Wii had three games that sold over 30 million copies, three more that sold over 20 million, two more that sold over 10 million, and over 100 games that sold at least 1 million copies. It is almost impossible that those games would collectively have gone to less than 50 million people (Wii's total lifetime sales were 101.6 million units, so 50 million would be the approximate minimum for that "more than half only played Wii Sports" claim).

How the hell did you get "Shrek" as a username in 2022

GanonsSpirit posted...

I like the Switch hardware better, but the Wii U firmware blows it out of the water. Nintendo took so many steps back with that one.

That, I can wholeheartedly agree with. Especially the eShop, which runs like an arthritic sloth and has fewer basic quality of life design features than even the Epic store (to say nothing of the shovelware problem that pretty much guarantees nobody's ever going to find a game unless they're specifically looking for it).

Ive been saying this for years and no one cared when I said it

The wii u was a disaster of a system and it soured me on Nintendo that I haven't even bothered with the Switch.

__starsnostars posted...

The wii u was a disaster of a system and it soured me on Nintendo that I haven't even bothered with the Switch.

It was pretty much entirely a marketing disaster, rather than there being anything really wrong with the system. It sold poorly, and every other problem (tiny library, short lifespan) just cascaded from that. I wouldn't say that should sour you in the Switch beyond being a little leery of buying one until you had an opportunity to see how well it was selling and what kind of library it would end up with (which, by now, you have).

It just wasn't a marketing disaster, the whole system's design was wrought with glaring problems.

Like... who thought it was a good idea to focus on having a controller with a tiny screen within a decade after the entire world just converted to large wide-screen high definition televisions.

Not to mention that tiny screen was so limited in functionality that it paled in comparison to even the most basic of smart phones at the time.

And do you know what Nintendo typically had going for it that their competitors didn't really emphasize at the time. Couch co-op and playing with friends in person. Do you know what doesn't make sense, designing a system around a controller that only one person can use.

I'd argue on the marketing end that it was doomed to fail unless they developed a TON of high quality first party titles for it (which they didn't).

The stupid name choice, the bottom tier controller design, and touch screen gimmick (which was already out of style before the console was even announced) were just icing compared to the release timing. The console was comparable in strength to the PS3 and Xbox 360, which were both at the tail end of their lifespan and already each had a massive install base. When the PS4/XBone released the next year, the Wii U was made completely obsolete, and lacked the innovative gimmick that drew people to the Wii (even among the casual fans that actually understood that the Wii U was a full new console, not a Wii add on).

Nintendo either had to accept a failure in the interim, or wait things out until technology became affordable enough to produce the Switch. It was pretty hard to wait it out, given that the Wii was running on 2001 tech.

Basically, they screw themselves over by making the Wii as underpowered as they did. It became a huge success and likely was the right move, but they had to pay for it in the long run with the Wii U. I think if Nintendo sticks to a Switch strategy by having a hybrid console release at or near the technical capabilities of competitor consoles roughly 2-3 years after, they'll continue having long term success.

__starsnostars posted...

It just wasn't a marketing disaster, the whole system's design was wrought with glaring problems.

Like... who thought it was a good idea to focus on having a controller with a tiny screen within a decade after the entire world just converted to large wide-screen high definition televisions.

Not to mention that tiny screen was so limited in functionality that it paled in comparison to even the most basic of smart phones at the time.

And do you know what Nintendo typically had going for it that their competitors didn't really emphasize at the time. Couch co-op and playing with friends in person. Do you know what doesn't make sense, designing a system around a controller that only one person can use.

there was a 5 player mario game, where the 5th player essentially got to play an entirely different game on the gamepad

it was fuckin excellent.

it had built in remote play that worked flawlessly with imperceptible latency, something that bigger companies can't even achieve to this day. hell, sony is trying it even now with the weird remote-play only handheld they just released even. and it fuckin sucks. which, i'll let you know, has already had a lot of bemoaning over how it's not just like the wii u's gamepad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_consoles

So nobody has a PS5 or the new Xbox (whatever that name is). Supply issues killing the shut-up-and-take-my-money effect?

I'm exaggerating but in any case modern gaming audience doesn't exist like it used to. I feel like PC gaming took off but I doubt that's everyone that's missing.

tf does that have to do with the wii u being awesome

The one thing the Wii U did really well (by accident) was the Miiverse.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/7/1/AAM4lZAAE1Ez.jpg

sodium-chloride posted...

How the hell did you get "Shrek" as a username in 2022

Because all the old used accounts from 20+ years ago that eventually got deleted got recycled back into the pool of available names a few years ago, so it probably became available again and no one snapped it up in the meantime.

It's not like any new users ever come to the site anymore, so nearly every new account is just being made by gimmick trolls who keep getting all their old accounts banned one after the other.

__starsnostars posted...

Like... who thought it was a good idea to focus on having a controller with a tiny screen within a decade after the entire world just converted to large wide-screen high definition televisions.

But it didn't focus on that. Streaming to that screen instead of using the actual TV was a feature, but when games actually focused on the gamepad it was to use it as a secondary display to free up HUD space. In that regard, it worked perfectly, even if relatively few games took full advantage of it (notable examples being WWHD and Xenoblade X, exploration-heavy games that were made so much more pleasant to play by not having to pause to see a full map).

__starsnostars posted...

And do you know what Nintendo typically had going for it that their competitors didn't really emphasize at the time. Couch co-op and playing with friends in person. Do you know what doesn't make sense, designing a system around a controller that only one person can use.

Quite the contrary: Very few games actually did it (I can really only think of Nintendoland, which was unironically a blast), but the gamepad enabled local asymmetrical multiplayer that no other console before or since has done. Only one person could use the gamepad at a time, but that's precisely what made it so great, because it meant that player could have a different view from everyone else in the room. In terms of local multiplayer, the only other way that's really possible is to hook up a bunch of PCs to LAN, which is significantly less practical than simply booting up a console.

And, of course, all of the games that didn't offer asymmetrical multiplayer offered exactly the same local multiplayer experience you'd get from any other system. Nothing was lost there, except that the gamepad was a bit unwieldy to use if you didn't have any use for the screen. I'm not sure why you're framing it as though Nintendo screwed over people who wanted local multiplayer.

Shrek posted...

it had built in remote play that worked flawlessly with imperceptible latency, something that bigger companies can't even achieve to this day.

While impressive, the fact that you pretty much had to be in the same room (or at least have a clear line of sight to the system and still not be more than ~15 feet away) kind of limited its utility. It was marketed as a way for people who live with others to not have to stop playing if somebody else was using the TV, and that was about the extent of it.

The PS Portal seems nice, I'm excited for that. I know it's not quite the same.

adjl posted...

While impressive, the fact that you pretty much had to be in the same room (or at least have a clear line of sight to the system and still not be more than ~15 feet away) kind of limited its utility. It was marketed as a way for people who live with others to not have to stop playing if somebody else was using the TV, and that was about the extent of it.

my guy that shit worked like a block away

Shrek posted...

my guy that shit worked like a block away

It really didn't, unless we're talking really small blocks with absolutely no interference. Anything further than the next room over was a crapshoot. It worked really well within that range, but the range was absolutely a limiting factor.

maybe u just didn't treat yours right adj did you ever think about that

It may also have been better with later models, since mine was a near-launch one.

__starsnostars posted...

And do you know what Nintendo typically had going for it that their competitors didn't really emphasize at the time. Couch co-op and playing with friends in person. Do you know what doesn't make sense, designing a system around a controller that only one person can use.

You, uh... do realize that more than one person could play on a Wii U, right? Like, up to four more people could play using Wiimotes?

Couch co-op with the Wii U fuckin' owned bones (for the rare games that actually *did* something with the Gamepad in multiplayer, at least). Nintendo Land had a bunch of super-fun games that revolved around the idea, and even games like New Super Mario Bros. U let the one player have a totally different experience to everyone else (you were *supposed* to help your friends with the gamepad, but my buddies and I had far more fun trying to screw each other over, as it gave the game some real challenge and was hilarious to boot).

The concept for the Wii U was actually a great one; it's just that no one executed on it well after the initial burst of games, and the controller was reduced to, as adjl put it, mostly just freeing up HUD space and/or providing easy menu access (which was sometimes cool, but kind of a waste of potential in my eyes). I had the same complaint about the Wii, actually - far too many companies saw motion controls and, rather than do anything cool with them, just used them to replace a function that would be much more elegantly served with a button input (like Donkey Kong Country Returns making "shake the Wiimote" the controller input for a roll, which was dumb). The reason why everyone loved Wii Sports was because you actually got to pantomime the actions your character was doing; if you can't do that with your game, don't use motion controls.

It says something about the (lack of) innovation in developer ranks that all of the games that I thought made the best use of the Wii's motion controls and the Wii U's gamepad (Wii Sports, Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, and WarioWare: Smooth Moves for the former; Nintendo Land and NSMBU for the latter) all came out in the first year of their respective consoles' lives and were all either developed directly by Nintendo or had their heavy involvement.

darkknight109 posted...

you were *supposed* to help your friends with the gamepad, but my buddies and I had far more fun trying to screw each other over, as it gave the game some real challenge and was hilarious to boot

This is why I don't get the people that are unhappy that Wonder is only going to offer the full co-op experience for local play and not online. Co-op in platformers isn't a matter of genuinely co-operating, outside of the occasional "here, have a spare life" thing that Wonder's online features does include. It's a matter of making the game harder by actively trying to screw each other over in the most infuriating ways possible. That's something that's really only fun to do if you can punch each other as needed, which you can't with faceless strangers.

darkknight109 posted...

the controller was reduced to, as adjl put it, mostly just freeing up HUD space and/or providing easy menu access (which was sometimes cool, but kind of a waste of potential in my eyes)

It's not as glamourous as something like local asymmetrical multiplayer that would otherwise be all but impossible, but as a quality of life feature it shouldn't be understated. WWHD took WW from, in my eyes, being toward the bottom of the 3D Zelda pack and made it a serious contender for the best of them, and that's pretty much because the exploration around which the entire game is designed went from being a tedious chore to being actually fun. The speed sail and truncated Triforce hunt had a lot to do with that, but the gamepad map was also a huge component, given that it's necessary to consult the map so often to make course adjustments while sailing. Being able to do that on the fly was amazing. Xenoblade X similarly benefited in much of the same ways, given how strongly that game emphasized exploration and how intricate the terrain was (meaning having more than a minimap was very helpful).

It may not have been the most exciting, but it was very welcome.

darkknight109 posted...

It says something about the (lack of) innovation in developer ranks that all of the games that I thought made the best use of the Wii's motion controls and the Wii U's gamepad (Wii Sports, Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, and WarioWare: Smooth Moves for the former; Nintendo Land and NSMBU for the latter) all came out in the first year of their respective consoles' lives and were all either developed directly by Nintendo or had their heavy involvement.

To be fair, it's not like third parties didn't also put out dozens of motion control minigame compilations for the Wii. By and large, they weren't as polished as Nintendo's, but they were definitely there. The market for motion control minigame compilations is only so large, though, and ultimately the wiimote was a bit too limited to really take it beyond that (at least until WMP came along, but by that point third parties had mostly abandoned the idea of taking the Wii seriously enough to take full advantage of that).

adjl posted...

It may not have been the most exciting, but it was very welcome.

I'm not saying it's bad; it just struck me as largely wasted potential, because the gamepad could have been used for so much more than "just" inventory/HUD management.

adjl posted...

To be fair, it's not like third parties didn't also put out dozens of motion control minigame compilations for the Wii.

To be clear, the fact that the games that I cited were all minigame compilations doesn't mean that's what I felt the best use of the system was; more that I thought those particular games were the ones that best came up with innovative control schemes that made the best use of the motion controls.

There's no reason that had to be restricted to minigame compilations, but few people made any real effort to properly implement it into other games. I recall the Soul Calibur adventure game for the Wii doing a pretty decent job of it, but that game was kind of lacklustre overall. Actually, that kind of became a theme for my experience with the Wii - all the (non-minigame) games that had interesting ideas/implementation for motion control-based control schemes, like The Force Awakens or Skyward Sword, were all kind of shit games outside of their controls.

The Force Awakens, for me, was probably my biggest disappointment for the Wii. The Force and lightsaber controls for that game were legitimately entertaining, but the rest of the game was just so fucking bad the controls couldn't redeem it. When the Wii came out, Lucasarts had ONE FUCKING JOB, and that was to deliver a competent lightsaber game, because that's what that console was *screaming* for, yet they didn't even manage to do that.