Arstechnica- We already knew a lot about the Wii U based on previous hands-on time with the system and announcements from Nintendo. But now that we have the actual hardware in Opposable Thumbs HQ (read: my Pittsburgh apartment), we've noticed a few things that were a bit surprising. Here’s a quick, picture-filled look at some of those surprises.
The Nintendo Switch is potentially nearing its lifespan, and several Wii U games haven't found their way over as ports yet.
I think it's better to leave games like AC: Amiibo Festival and Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash forgotten on the Wii U. Best case, they are mediocre games; worse case, they are very bad. It was a dark time for the Wii U, and the first only exists to sell Amiibo cards, whereas the second was put together in a couple of months with a shoestring budget, and it shows.
The rest of the list does have some really cool games, though. I would love to see a remake of Star Fox Zero with decent controls, and Xenoblade X doesn't require that much modification to work.
This article leaves out Nintendo's most controversial game to date devils Third.
I personally found the cover system really fun in that one compared to at the time most fps games completely lacking one.
Kirby is always ignored or forgotten by people, so good to see it mentioned here.
Play Kirby Canvas Curse on DS, and then play Rainbow Curse on Wii U, they're really fun and unique 'platformers' without any actual jumping.
Hanzala from eXputer: "The cruel hammer of Nintendo has fallen. Farewell, 3DS and Wii U, you surely brightened my life and many others; you won't be forgotten."
A new list goes over eight of the the most useless amiibo, ranging from the Shadow Mewtwo card to the Qbby figure.
Nintendo always has mystery connectors. I know the one on the bottom of the gamepad will be to hook it up to future accessories. One of them will no doubt be the zapper style gun with the gamepad hooked into it which can then be used as a scope for aiming along the lines of Silent Scope style games. Sniper Elite V2 is still listed as a March release according to Gamespot. Imagine that accessory for a game like that? Perfect match.
I was surprised it was more poweerful than ps3 and 360. 512mb more ram available for games and a better gpu. Still not a beast though.
The PSU is massive! 360 massive. I prefer the Sony way, inbuilt.
things that surprised me
for a console to come out in 2012 not to have:
Ethernet port
built in HDD (not counting flash storage)
Quality of hardware. Every Nintendo Console I've ever owned has remained in GREAT condition. I do take care of them, but even so, there hasn't been hardware issues.
Their reliability is amazing in comparison to the competition.