What's the point of the Wii U?

Aleksander Demko

December, 2012

I like Nintendo. I have a long history with them. I grew up with the original NES and SNES systems and did buy the original Wii near launch. At the time it was a good value: half the price of existing systems, innovative waggle/wiimote interface (which my family still enjoys to this day) and good-enough (at the time) SD graphics.

However, a few years in, when the PS3 price dropped to about $250 I ended up buying one. Why? HD and Internet gaming. The Wii's graphics where no longer consider worthy of my new HD TV and its tiny flash drive and poor online interface were a joke compared to the PS3. In all the years I've had the Wii, Nintendo barely updated the software and never really added any new, interesting online functionality.

Now, with the next console generation soon to be upon us, Nintendo has released their next console, the Wii U.

Nintendo has seemed to not have learned any of the current generation lessons. The Wii U has, in my opinion, some major drawbacks:

• Poor graphics (again). It's a next generation system with current generation graphics. The Wii U will again be behind and look antiquated when Microsoft and Sony release their next generation machines.
• Tiny disk storage, some as low as 4GB. My current generation PS3 has 140GB which I use to routinely use for game updates, game downloads and demos (a couple of demos can easily be a 10GB download). Nintendo just doesn't understand the importance of online play and software downloading in this app-store inspired world.
• Useless Wii U controller. Unlike the original Wiimote, this thing is expensive and seems to be looking for a problem to solve. It's not as portable as a 3DS or Vita, not as Internet-capable as a tablet and apparently has to be within a few meters of the console - it might not even reach all the corners of my house!
• No bundled Wiimotes. By not bundling a Wiimote, Wii U game developers that want to make Wii-like waggle/physical games (like Wii Sports, Boom Blox, Just Dance etc) must now factor in that not everyone has or will buy a Wiimote, limiting their potential customer base.

With all these drawbacks I'm finding it hard to to see how a Wii U is better than the current PS3, never mind the future PS4. The PS3 has comparable graphics, more storage, a larger game library and to top it off, plays Blu-Rays!

I'm not claiming to say this will be Nintendo's last generation of consoles - they've survived worse. But I do think they've screwed up with the Wii U and will pay for it in the upcoming console generation.