What is a Wii U?

[pooley]

Bit of a random one, mini Poole (8) has asked Santa for a Wii u for Christmas. Only because he wants to play splatoon (seen on YouTube)

 

He has never played on one, we used to have a Wii but lack of use ended up with me giving it away.

 

We have an xbox360 (again barely used apart from Minecraft)

 

So what are these new fangled Wii U devices? Are they big DS' or ??

 

Ta

 

Si

[Norphy]

The Wii U is the successor to the Wii. It has roughly the same processing and graphical power as an Xbox 360. It has a controller with a touchscreen built into it, the utility of which I'm not sure about. It can use Wiimotes for the first Wii as well.

[Dos_Box]

Or being a bit more pragmatic, it is the console where Nintendo completely lost the plot and totally mis-judged where the console and gaming industry were headed.

They upset everyone from consumers to software houses. It is underpowered, under specced and overpriced and with little or no third party support.

With the Wii U people talk about games which are due out in 3-4 months time, because there is nothing else coming out for it!

And yes, I own one, so I can say these things! I picked one up 12 months back for a mere £100 thanks to a voucher offer slipped to me by @ZeroHour to use on Rauketan. This was for the basic 8GB model (oh yes, and storage is pitiful, either 8 or 32GB so it's a good job you can whack a USB drive in the back!) which has now shot right up in price to almost £200 for some bizzare reason seeing as it used to retail at £150!

 

The games, such as they are are great fun and well made, but they are mainly Nintendo in-house affairs and forget any AAA third-party titles making their way to the machine, it's simply too underpowered and has sold in such small numbers that it is hard for a company to recoup development costs for a Wii U title.

If you want one I would suggest waiting for ither a Black Friday or Cyber Monday deal or you are really lucky a reduced price on the run up to Christmas. if not then try second hand, but I wouldn't pay what many are currently asking as the price has been jacked up considerably since last year whch could be off the back of Mario Maker and Splatoon (both of which we own!).

Edited November 16, 2015 by Dos_Box

[NokiX]

Or being a bit more pragmatic, it is the console where Nintendo completely lost the plot and totally mis-judged where the console and gaming industry were headed.

They upset everyone from consumers to software houses. It is underpowered, under specced and overpriced and with little or no third party support.

With the Wii U people talk about games which are due out in 3-4 months time, because there is nothing else coming out for it!

And yes, I own one, so I can say these things! I picked one up 12 months back for a mere £100 thanks to a voucher offer slipped to me by @ZeroHour to use on Rauketan. This was for the basic 8GB model (oh yes, and storage is pitiful, either 8 or 32GB so it's a good job you can whack a USB drive in the back!) which has now shot right up in price to almost £200 for some bizzare reason seeing as it used to retail at £150!

 

The games, such as they are are great fun and well made, but they are mainly Nintendo in-house affairs and forget any AAA third-party titles making their way to the machine, it's simply too underpowered and has sold in such small numbers that it is hard for a company to recoup development costs for a Wii U title.

If you want one I would suggest waiting for ither a Black Friday or Cyber Monday deal or you are really lucky a reduced price on the run up to Christmas. if not then try second hand, but I wouldn't pay what many are currently asking as the price has been jacked up considerably since last year whch could be off the back of Mario Maker and Splatoon (both of which we own!).

 

Pretty much nailed it there. I got one not too long after launch since I mainly play on PC so I wanted something that can be fun with a few family members which it is if you play any of the Mario games. It is very frustrating however that it doesn't even have basic applications like iPlayer like the Wii did and when you switch to the Wii menu you can't download any of the old applications since it's only used to play the old Wii games.

 

Frankly my Wii U has turned into a netflix box since that's pretty much all we use it for now apart from at Christmas etc.

[abillybob]

Had a Wii U for 8 months this year and did get some fun out of it, though most are AAA titles such as Mario and they kept putting off the new Zelda game to the point now I've sold the thing. It was ok for a while and then the gimmick wore off and I shoved it on eBay along with all the games and an extra controller.

My advice is to try and persuade your little one to go for something else as after a month and a half he will get bored of it unless he has 4 best friends that come around to play local multiplayer 3 times a week.

[NB9457]

Much better off with an Xbone of PS4, plus the Xbone has kinect if he wants to jump around the room and they've both got a long life span, loads of games and apps plus bluray!

 

Also Nintendo are working on a new console codenamed 'NX'

[Duranis]

Yeah my youngest wanted one as well (purely for Splatoon and Mario Maker). I wouldn't hold your hopes up of getting any money off deals before Christmas. Nintendo seem to deliberately inflate the price and reduce the availability of their hardware around this time of year/

[pooley]

Thanks guys, so basically I need to put him off or find a super duper deal for it.

 

It's the only bloomin thing hes asked Santa for this year too

[pscott]

Buy Black Wii U Premium with Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon Multiplay Bundle | Free UK Delivery | GAME

 

Probably best bet at the moment, but you might well see some discounts black friday!

[sted]

is a good console just it just didn't sell well. there are some good games for it but as other have said all Nintendo. The tablet screen when used well is good but its often just a mirror (though this does mean you can play games without using your tv. Storage is small but ive not filled my 32 yet and ive got a fair bit downloaded from eshop (though mostly old games from previous systems). It does depend what you want splatoon for example is fun multiplayer but single player wont keep you going long im told. If you like retro Nintendo games go for it but be aware there is a replacement due to be announced next year and might be here 2016/early 2017

[CAM]

Wii U had what was regarded as some of the best games this year. It has recently come out of a slew of good releases after the console was marred by a number of terrible decisions at launch by Nintendo. You can't go wrong with a second hand console IMO (mine is).

 

- Splatoon is an online paint-based shooter and regarded as one of the best titles on the platform.

- Mario Kart 8 is another incarnation of the go-kart racer but is very good fun and Nintendo's first proper foray online.

- Mario Maker is something new and old. You can create and share your own levels and play them, it's very good fun and IMO contains some good educational value (I've learned a lot about level design principles and iterating their development from this title).

- I haven't played Bayonetta 2 and it's the token mature title on the platform, but it received some very positive reviews.

- Lots of Virtual Console titles (including Sega!) if you can't get them running on a PC emulator yourself.

 

The console will be going down as a learning point from the company. They released it too early so it's underpowered compared to XB1 and PS4 and still uses PowerPC (the others transitioned to x86) along with some trickery with the rather powerful GPU taking a lot of the load, so third parties had a hard time porting their code and cutting content which resulted in poor sales and the vicious dev cycle. Nintendo however know how to make use of the hardware (they stupidly mistreated and ignored third parties) so they've been able to take full advantage of the hardware. Don't expect any major third party released to hit the console but don't expect what's on the Wii U to be on another platform either.

 

I personally use it to accompany my PC and used it a lot more than my PS4.

 

Oh and more importantly, Nintendo titles are often released in a really well polished state with player feedback taken into account. If only the rest of the company would stop acting like idiots. >.<

Edited November 17, 2015 by CAM

[simpsonj]

Agree with @CAM, largely enjoyed the WiiU as a console companion to my Gaming PC. The quality of Nintendo games on release is a marked difference from most other games that need a day one patch to work properly.

 

That, and Xenoblades Chronicles X is released very soon...

[NB9457]

Without sounding awful, Nintendo games whilst fun, are very simple and not as complex as the the titles brought out on Xbone and PS4.

 

Take GTA V for example, it's a huge game, exceeding 70GB now and with all the detail, graphics, you have to expect bugs and what not as it's a much bigger game in every aspect than mario kart or splatoon.

[CAM]

And yet I stopped playing GTA Online because of the bugs, excessive loading times, questionable design/systems choices and the generally horrible hacker infested playerbase.

[X-13]

Without sounding awful, Nintendo games whilst fun, are very simple and not as complex as the the titles brought out on Xbone and PS4.

 

[Citation needed]

 

Take GTA V for example, it's a huge game, exceeding 70GB now and with all the detail, graphics, you have to expect bugs and what not as it's a much bigger game in every aspect than mario kart or splatoon.

 

And GTA V is the same as the other GTA games. It just looks fancier.