Was it a hit? For me, yes in many respects and no in an important one, the price.
I'll start with the price to get that out of the way before moving onto the positives.
The first point about the price is that it's too high, the second point is the reason and that reason is that despite the giant mess with the price of the 3DS, Nintendo does not seem to have learnt anything from that debacle and have allowed retailers again to set the price. Even more annoyingly, America and Japan had their prices set by Nintendo, why the UK and Europe didn't I don't know. Due to this in my opinion (and by a lot of other peoples by the looks of it) retailers have yet again priced to high and many people are expecting a price cut sooner rather then later.
So onto the positives.
Add in the new pad with the ability to play the games on it whilst other people use the TV, 3DS and WiiU compatibility, the Miiverse, backwards compatibility and it looks like it's shaping up to be a fairly good console. There are still reservations regarding the online (the Wii was unfortunately sometimes severely lacking in that department) and the size of the memory but it they sort those properly and keep the third party developers on board then it could shape up to be a cracking console.
Will I be buying one? In the long run yes but only once the inevitable price drop has happened or when retailers offer bundles with extra games. If Nintendo and developers release even half as many great games as they did on the Wii then in my book it will be worth purchasing a WiiU.
What are your thoughts? Will you be buying one at launch, later or not at all. Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
*You can view Nintendo's presentation here.
Good review/analysis, not biased, just intelligent. I get sick of people only ever being negative either dismissing Nintendo as only a casual game company or saying where's Zelda/Metroid/3D Mario.
ReplyDeleteI think if you compare this set of launch games to the Xbox 360 & especially the PS3 it looks a lot more impressive and worth the money. The original Wii had the best launch last generation.
Don't forget there's Lego City Undercover, Scriblenauts Unlimited and Assassins Creed 3 and more! They're doing a preview just before the launch a few days at metrocentre.
It'll be very interesting to see if people pick up the Wii U in droves, like the Wii, or if many of them wait for what most consider to be an inevitable price-drop. I say that because I, too, think the price is a bit too high. (I'm speaking of the North American price, by the way.) I've heard quite a few others say the same thing, so the question is: Will they/we still by their/our guns, or will they/we pick one up around launch anyway?
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'm going to wait for a bit. I really want a white Wii U, so I'm hoping Nintendo eventually will sell deluxe sets that include a white Wii U instead of a black one. Also, I'd like to pay no more than $249 for the basic unit, or $299 for the deluxe one, so I'd like to wait to see if the price will drop during the first six months of 2013.
Other than that, though, I'm completely sold on the system -- and that's without knowing much of anything about its online capabilities (sigh), how it'll use NFC technology, what its eShop will be like, etc.
I think the Wii U's launch line-up is quite a bit more appealing than the 3DS' was, by the way, and even the Wii's. When I do pick one up, I'll get Nintendo Land, NSMBU and probably ZombiU along with it, with many more to follow suit in the future, I'm sure :)
I'm very excited about the Wii U and it's looking like I'll buy the system on launch day. I really wanna check out New Super Mario Bros. U and Nintendo Land also interests me. I guess I'm in the minority but I don't think the price is too high, especially when you consider that the PS3 launched at $600 and I doubt Sony and Microsoft's next consoles will be any cheaper.
ReplyDeleteAnother very good post, dste.
I'm in a very mixed mood with the Wii-U. On the one hand, I do want a machine myself and I'm also tired of the flack that it's receiving already before even being released.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, there aren't any 'killer' games for me. Pikmin 3 looks great but I've yet to make a start on either of the Gamecube games, I'll be giving NSMB a miss as the previous ones didn't grab me like the SNES 2D Marios and the Ubisoft stuff? It looks okay but so did the Wii Ubisoft launch titles until gamers actually played them. Red Steel was pretty entertaining but in retrospect it isn't that good.
Most of the third-party stuff will be PS3 pick-ups for me too. It's the proper exclusives that I'm eagerly anticipating announcements for.
I'm confident that games for me will come though. In any case, I have too many consoles and games to be getting on with already to justify adding another so that reason alone decides it for me at the moment.
A good post though :)