So have none of you guys purchased a Wii U yet? (I guess Dave Long doesn’t post on Qt3 anymore…)
I just checked Target and almost all of the local stores still have them in stock, so I was tempted to go out and grab one this morning along with ZombieU and Mario. But then I glanced over at my 360/PS3 backlog and came to my senses.
Curious to hear some non-reviewer impressions for the Qt3 crowd.
Mentioned this on the review thread, but until you can buy another controller and make use of it in games I have no interest in buying this.
More apropos to this thread is that I’ve seen very little (almost none, in fact) excitement among any of my gamer friends IRL or on the internet about this device. Perhaps there are pockets of gamers I don’t associate with (like kids) who are dying to get this for Christmas but unless there’s a huge hidden demand this seems like it is going to be a company-threatening launch failure, which is unfortunate because I still love Nintendo’s games.
It does seem like there’s very little talking about it. A new console just launched and there’s not more than a handful of posts on most gaming forums…
Hardware is nothing without software, and this thing has not killer app yet. I am interested on the posibilities of a new screen but I am not a console gamer. The console has yet to stablish a connection with that people.
I didn’t even know it was out. I saw a friend post a picture of it on his FB but he’s a game dev so I figured it was a dev system.
Went out and bought one this morning but since I heard there was a 5 gig patch (really Nintendo?) I just started the download and went to Disneyland. I’ll see how it is tonight.
I’ll get one eventually since I enjoy many of Nintendo’s first-party franchises, but it won’t be this year. I received a Wii as a gift from my wife back when they first hit the street, and figuring she’d do the same for me this time around I headed her off and told her I’ll probably pick one up on my own later on when there are more and better looking games available. Aside from Rayman Legends and NSMBU, I can’t think of any other earlyish entries off the top of my head I was especially looking forward to playing on the system any time soon.
I’m not paying $59.99 for ports of games that regularly sell for $15-25 on other platforms, as in the case with Batman and ME3, and I’ve no interest in yet another stupid looking zombie game. I don’t even know what other (non-port) titles are out there this morning, or what’s expected to woo gamers at this point (certainly not Techdemoland I’m sure), so I’m not feeling pressured to dive in asap or anything.
Once Christmas comes and goes, and stores get restocked, and there are a few more titles out there, I’ll reconsider things then. I’m guessing no earlier than February, but given that the new SimCity comes out in March, I might just keep the Wii U on the back burner till April or May.
I’d like to see it succeed, but most of these launch titles do absolutely nothing for me.
Haven’t got one but I will report that there is … one guy at work who is excited about this. That’s it. There’s little to no buzz.
Early reports of framerate problems in the multiplatform ports. Bad enough in Batman for the Giant Bomb crew to anti-recommend it because of the effect on combat.
No doubt that will improve over time but how silly is it that they cut the hardware margin so close to the other systems that simply achieving parity with a six year older system is a development challenge.
I saw a link on another forum comparing the WiiU’s Google buzz withe the original Wii’s, and the WiiU could barely muster a tenth of the searches. So either everyone is using Bing now, or there is very little mainstream interest. Also appears they’re easy to find in stores so all the scalpers may end up taking a bath. :-)
The day one system update that takes 2 hours to install sounds awful, though. It was pretty funny watching the journos livetweeting their installs last night when it finally went live. And those guys have never stopped complaining about 10 minute firmware updates on the PS3.
Nintendo is sitting on about 10.5 Billion dollars in the bank. They’ll be OK.
My preorder doesn’t show up until Tuesday. Also ordered ZombiU. I have faith in Nintendo. That, and my kids comandeered the Wii. Can’t wait to finish up Xenoblade Chronicles and start The Last Story.
I bought it last night. The update took about an hour to download and install. Several of the games have updates too, but thankfully you can let those download in the background while you play. I wasn’t terribly excited about it going in, the buzz just hasn’t been there. After reading some very positive reviews of Mario and Nintendo Land, I decided I might as well. I’m really impressed with it so far. 4 players in Nintendo Land is a blast, and the single player stuff has been pretty good too. Most of the games make good use of giving the gamepad player different abilities or objectives. Often it’s the gamepad player vs the wiimotes with the gamepad containing secret information. I don’t know how they marketed the game so poorly during the announcement, but it’s a game that absolutely should have been bundled with both versions of the Wii U. New Super Marios Bros U has been fun as well, only spent about an hour with it so far.
The gamepad feels good in your hands. Very light. The screen looks good. I had read some people say it was surprisingly small, but I think it seems about right. Obviously more screen space would never hurt. All points and purchases for the Wii are fairly easy to get transferred to the Wii U, but the actual transfer to and from the SD card takes some time. There are preloaded Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Video apps. I tried Netflix, it is convenient to be able to switch from the tv to the gamepad. Remote control functionality was easy to setup and works well. Pretty basic and hopefully something they expand on in the future.
The user interface seems to take the best of the Wii and the 3DS. Works very well. Anything from the original Wii is separated into it’s own menu, and it looks like it actually boots into the Wii’s operating system to access it. The loading times on the menus are a bit long, but the actual interaction with the UI is very snappy.
The range on the gamepad is decent; I was using it from two rooms away and only had the connection break once.
I’m certainly happy with my purchase so far. Pretty much been playing with it all day. The user experience has been good so far and I think Nintendo is doing a lot right with this console. It’s just a matter of continued content being released for it.
I am just speculating here internet style. But I suspect that framerate issues on a new system aren’t an indication of a lack of horsepower, but in lack of optimization for the new platform. I know it sounds like two sides of the same coin but one implies that they are already hitting their throughput thresholds and the other that its issues with launch titles (or an indication that the sdk was changing/the developers didnt get as much time on it as they needed).
But I dont have any real data either way.
Tried a few places, no wiiu for me =<
Teardowns have already shown the main memory bandwidth is actually significantly slower than either the 360 or PS3. Rumors have also suggested the CPU is pretty deficient compared to either the 360 or PS3’s.
OTOH, these are ports of games that run fine on other systems which are now 7 years old.
It is unreasonable to expect launch titles to maximize the horsepower available on a brand new console, but it is pretty reasonable to expect a 2012 system to run games originally created for a 2005 system without breaking much of a sweat. If they need that optimization space just to get things to a state where 360 ports run adequately, that’s not a great sign. Hopefully(?) the real issue is that the developers just didn’t put much effort into the ports because they assume the sales will be relatively low relative to the Xbox360/PS3 versions.
(I know this is complicated by the WiiU’s focus on the “special” controller and having to bring the whole system in at a reasonable cost, but still, I think the system apparently having issues with these titles is going to give it a bit of a black eye).
You are never going to buy a Wii U then. Even when you can buy replacement tablet controllers, you aren’t going to be able to use more than one at the same time.
You have no idea how happy this makes me.
I walked into a toys r us looking for a wii motion adapter or a new wii plus remote (wife wanted to play skyward sword) and walked out with a new wii u. Certainly wasn’t planning on it but I justified it with the theory there will be the inevitable must buy Zelda or Metroid game. Probably.
Zombie U isn’t a system seller or anything but I like it quite a bit so far.