GI - The Wii U launches on Nov. 18 in the States with launches in Europe and Japan later on Nov. 30. Plenty of people have criticized the system for a multitude of reasons, even on Gaming Illustrated–we are a site divided on the Wii U. The question with the first “Next-Gen” console is how it will do when Nintendo releases it to the public. Can Nintendo expect to fall on its face with this launch or can it have an amazing launch with systems selling out this Holiday season? Will the Wii U be a huge success and have the long-term staying power of the Wii?
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Nintendo has a large user-base of dedicated fans. The real question is, can Nintendo attract back the customers who became frustrated with the Wii's lack of "core" games and HD support? Hopefully they can.
Nintendo have always, and will always have WAY more fanboys then Sega had.
Don't like what I said? Then prove me wrong.
the wii u will succeed because of it's legacy and reputation. almost everyone who bought the Wii, got it for reasons that it's Nintendo, and you're sure to expect exclusives that you won't find anywhere else.
the fact is, casual gamers outnumber the core gamers, and parents who are buying games for their kids are more familiar with the Nintendo brand coz they grew up with them. they know that Nintendo's been around for awhile.
lastly, true gamers respect Nintendo for the way the company changes gaming experience. true core gamers respect what each of those companies offer, and know that bashing one over the other is pointless, and hurt the most important thing in gaming which is simply to enjoy what you're playing.
as a gamer, i have always enjoyed what the big 3 has to offer. i equally enjoy their exclusives and give merits to whatever the games has to offer -- 4 if i count the games i play in my PC.
They did that on far inferior specs and significant lack of 3rd party support and sub-par versions of games that were really different games entirely.
Both of those aspects are gone this round. The PS4 and 720 won't be that much powerful, sorry the tech doesn't exist and won't for half a decade if they wanted to put out a $1000-$2000 console THEN. So all three will have the same games except for the obvious exclusives amongst each console.
3rd party support will be excellent. There won't be two versions of games to choose from this time, there will be three. The Wii U's will be slightly less, but not by much at all. Then again, until the PS4/720 come out, it'll be by far the most powerful console. You already have Bioware, EA, Activision (with many titles), Ubi (with what 7 launch titles comprising many of their studios...Ubi Paris, Ubi Quebec, etc), Gearbox, etc, etc. It's already been proven that the Wii U will have great 3rd party support.
They also have a revolutionary gamepad that cannot be matched by Vita or Smartglass. These also cost hundreds of dollars by themselves, and WON'T be included with the console, thus WON'T be supported by the game devs, at least not very much....like Kinect. Every Wii U has one, so each dev can justify the costs in implementing it, because when EVERYONE has one, instead of 10 percent of the console owners, then people are certain to use it. Even worse is MS and Sony don't even think they need to counter it, just like they didn't think they needed to counter motion controls......until they did. Same thing will happen here, but it won't work very well (See Kinect and Move) until PS5 and Xbox 1080 when they can put one in every system.
It's also going to be the cheapest console. Hell it's probably already cheaper than what the 720/PS4 will launch at. By the time they come out (or once they ramp up production so if they came out in November, the next spring is when that is) Nintendo can do a price cut and be quite a bit cheaper.
Haven't owned a Nintendo system since NES/SNES/N64, or back when older gamers saw Nintendo as the hardcore system. Things change, then change, and then change againg. Because there was a time when Apple and Atari ruled the gaming world.
Nintendo will succeed, it has everything going for it, and alot more than when the Wii was launched, especially first to market. The PS4 and 720 will be great systems, but not much more powerful, and none of the three will beat out a PC that could be built years ago. Like say an i7 920 and a GTX 670. But all three will be fun, and the Wii U has none of the drawbacks the Wii had.
Those are the facts.