[ace2358]

The Wii U was unfortunately not a very successful console, but I feel that it had plenty of power to make fantastic looking games and great experiences. It came out in a weird time for technology and Nintendo always uses slightly older hardware.

As a homebrew device it is amazing. There are still exploits being found with a new, safe, simple method out now thanks to some crazy dedicated modders.

There’s a whole homebrew sdk. The Wii U can also run Wii and GameCube games by reconfiguring the hardware (or some other sort of firmware voodoo). That’s three generations of video game libraries that can be explored on one console!

Always felt like it deserved more popularity, but it couldn’t compete with the ps3/4 and Xbox 360/one.

[actionfromafar]

When it hit the stores, the reaction of most I know of was something like "I have a Wii already". So I think the naming was incredibly hampering.

Especially considering a lot of Wii buyers were not exactly deep gamers, but very casual customers.

[psychphysic]

It also promoted the pad beyond the console. Many weren't sure if it was a new pad for the original Wii.

[mardifoufs]

I didn't know that until this post lol. And it was released when I was 12 and actually into gaming. Now I find it weird that the "controller" is so weak that it can't do anything but stream from the console, it kind of make the portability useless.

[danielheath]

Main thing I used mine for was continuing to play a game when someone else wanted the TV; I could just switch to "display on controller" and keep going. Not such a big deal these days but back then it was pretty nice!

[Sakos]

Asynchronous game design is something that holds a lot of promise. Traditionally, that was something reserved for online multiplayer in PC games. But suddenly it was possible to design local coop around one player interacting with the game in a different way than the others. The idea is still really cool, but I think most devs are unwilling to experiment with such a niche product.

[TremendousJudge]

I think you meant "Asymmetric" instead of "Asynchronous". I think Asynchronous games would be something like Travian

[Sakos]

Lmao, of course, thanks. I knew there was something wrong with the word but I couldn't think of the right one.

[Beldin]

Zelda four swords adventures managed that on the cube already. Not quite suddenly, I'd say. Awesome game if you had 3 friends and the necessary hardware.

[astura]

The idea was to have two different screens displaying different information and there would be interactions between the two. Like the Nintendo DS's two screens. I played a tech demo(?) at the store where you'd aim a bow and arrow with the Gamepad at a target that was on the TV.

The idea didn't really end up panning out for most games.

[morelisp]

Critically, it could stream something different than what the console was rendering to the TV. At the time it seemed Nintendo was hoping for the kind of design explosion the DS had early in its life, and a few titles trying such things were really good, but for many reasons it didn't stick the way the DS did.

[actionfromafar]

Screens were slightly less ubiquitous then. You could continue playing on the controller when dad switched the living room TV to some sports.

[jonny_eh]

> it kind of make the portability useless

It's not actually portable, it's purely a controller.

[AlwaysRock]

Especially since the original Wii sold so incredibly well and had such a great price point for so long.

[Narann]

> Always felt like it deserved more popularity, but it couldn’t compete with the ps3/4 and Xbox 360/one.

The Wii U marketing was a total disaster. Using the same name as a well established, casual platform, with a tiny suffix + pushing the "same gamepad compatibility" makes this hardware looks like an expensive "revised" version.

I can't understand how Nintendo didn't catch on this.

[dm319]

The number of people who say 'I thought the Wii U was a handheld?', made me realise how badly they messed up. Home console buyers didn't realise it was a console. Handheld buyers realised quickly it wasn't a handheld.

[jacobr1]

It also shows in the switch how much they learned their lesson.

[jonny_eh]

Indeed, I feel that the Switch wouldn't have been such a mega hit if not for the WiiU's failure.

[fomine3]

Switch is the perfect implementation of Wii + Wii U

[DCKing]

> Nintendo always uses slightly older hardware.

This is a bit of a meme, but it isn't generally true. The Nintendo 64 and GameCube were pretty cutting edge in their day. At the time the Nintendo Switch released, the Tegra X1 was still about as cutting edge as mobile GPUs came (in early 2016).

What Nintendo is about - to a fault, some would argue - is cost cutting. Sometimes that means they use older stuff, but using older stuff isn't always the best cost cutting balance to strike. The article even notes this:

> To be fair, it’s known that Nintendo’s choices are not always based on ‘cutting-edginess’ but on cost and supply.

[Steltek]

Hang on there. I think the more accurate sentiment is "Nintendo hardware has lackluster graphics".

Switch is as much a console as it is a mobile device. Compared to an XBox, a Switch is a few horses short of a full stable.

Even the blockbuster Wii could only do 480p while contemporaries were doing HD.

What Nintendo does well is make the tradeoff worth it. Both the Wii and Switch make up for their reduced graphics by pioneering new ways of thinking about console gaming.

[RajT88]

The Wii gets a lot of hate for bad looking games. Deservedly so.

The example I like to give is the game GT Pro Series. It looked super rough even for the horsepower the Wii was packing.

However, the motion controls make that game among the most fun racing games I have ever played. It was great! I still play occasionally.

[DCKing]

Well it's about perspective I guess. I understand the expectations for a home console, but especially between 2016 and 2019 Digital Foundry kept gushing about what kind of graphics the Switch enabled specifically on a handheld. Handheld gaming is not necessarily my preferred mode either, but I don't think the generalizations about Nintendo are fair - neither that their hardware is old, nor that their graphics are lackluster. For the Wii and Wii U both things are true, but for the GameCube and Switch I just don't think that's a fair thing to say.

The one generalization that is maybe fair is that Nintendo's design goals don't seem to satisfy all of the desires of enthusiast gamers, and are not aiming to satisfy them.

[croak3r]

The gamecube is 20 years old though and ever since then they've had the weakest hardware. I remember buying a Wii the month it released and being pretty disappointed at how bad the graphics looked.

[jonny_eh]

The Switch's mobile chipset was basically as bleeding edge as you could buy at the time. But it was a mobile chipset, so couldn't compete with a PS4 or Xbox.

[astrange]

The main problem is that even if it was cutting edge at the time, they can't or won't upgrade it. Of course iPads, which do upgrade their SoC every year, aren't as good at playing games.

[jonny_eh]

A big issue with the annual upgrade cycle is that it becomes much harder for devs to test their games due to hardware fragmentation.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

I still wonder if the 4KiB texture cache in the N64 was a cost-cutting decision. It totally defined the look of N64 games.

[monocasa]

If it was a texture cache, it would have been fine. Unfortunately it was a manually loaded seperate bank of memory for textures.

[iLoveOncall]

You are right to say that they are actually using modern technology and sometimes even cutting-edge technology, but that does not mean that it is not inadequate technology.

The meme is about "Nintendo consoles have outdated technical capabilities and the games look like shit", and that is accurate.

[chungy]

> I feel that it had plenty of power to make fantastic looking games and great experiences.

It did, and it shows in that many of the top-selling games on Switch are ports of Wii U games.

[psychphysic]

Breath of the Wild ran poorly on both platforms on release. Which surprised me, and undermined the power of the Switch.

That said the Switch remains underpowered compared to contemporary game consoles.

[bzzzt]

Switch is not competing with PS/Xbox, but with mobile phones, tablets and portable consoles (including Nintendo's DS line). It's not underpowered for a battery powered game machine and has a standardised controller setup and easy docking as differentiators to other mobile devices.

[amyjess]

Unless you like JRPGs, in which case the Switch is a first-class console.

Except for a few AAA-scale action RPGs that launch on PS4/5 (e.g. FF7R, upcoming FF16), the vast majority of JRPGs being released today come to Switch first. And when Switch exclusivity expires, many of them only get a PC release beyond that with PS4/5 and XB1/XSX releases simply never happening.

For a good chunk of JRPG players, the question is "PS5 or Switch?". And if you're like me and specifically prefer turn-based JRPGs, you can forget about anything that launches as a Sony exclusive so that leaves the Switch as your #1 console.

Though I guess the comparison to the DS works well here, as the DS was to platformers during its heyday what the Switch is to JRPGs now.

[morelisp]

The DS was also to JRPGs what the Switch is to them now! Contact, Dragon Quest IX, TWEWY, Strange Journey, Rune Factory - median and top 10 beats both the PSP and PS3.

[amyjess]

There were some good JRPGs for the DS, but it was nowhere near as dominant as the Switch is now..

The PSP was a pretty strong contender, since it had the 2.5D Trails games, FF7 Crisis Core, and some of the best remakes of FF4, FFT, and Tactics Ogre.

And PS3 got a lot of then-exclusives in mid-budget franchises that would be Switch games if they launched now, such as multiple Atelier trilogies and the first half of Trails of Cold Steel (and in fact they've all been ported to Switch). By comparison, current Atelier games now launch simultaneously on Switch and PS4 with PC ports following soon after, and the much-delayed English localizations of Trails now get cross-platform releases (Switch/PC/PS4 simultaneously).

There was never a point during the DS's lifetime where you could say "except for a tiny handful of AAA-scale PS3 exclusives, every JRPG either got simultaneous DS/PS3 releases or was a DS exclusive", but it is the case that right now you can say "except for a tiny handful of AAA-scale PS4/5 exclusives, every JRPG either gets a simultaneous Switch/PS4 release or is a Switch exclusive". I'll also add that we're in a PC renaissance too; JRPGs on PC were virtually nonexistent during the PS3 and DS's heyday (unless you spoke enough Japanese to play unlocalized Falcom games), but now pretty much every JRPG that isn't a first-party Nintendo game gets a PC port, with even the timed Switch exclusives coming to PC after a few months to a year.

[captainbland]

Yeah but the PS5 gets horrible battery life and I need an IKEA furniture bag to transport it.

[wodenokoto]

It did? I never noticed performance issues with breath of the wild

[matsemann]

I bought a Switch the other week (OLED version, but same powered hardware I guess?) and am playing BotW just now. Two things that create some lag I've noticed: the forest area with the master sword, and when blowing up lots of explosive crates.

[gambiting]

Did you never get to the forest where the Master Sword is? The entire area around it runs at about 10fps, on both the Switch and the Wii U.

[dagmx]

Breath of the Wild is quite terrible on the Wii U. You get frame stutters when there’s more content on screen than just a few enemies and the resolution + aliasing are really hard on the eyes. Load times as well are longer.

I stopped playing on Wii U and rebought it for the Switch where it’s significantly better.

[microtonal]

It came out in a weird time for technology and Nintendo always uses slightly older hardware.

I had a Playstation 2 and 3 before, but since we became parents, we wanted something family-friendly. We seriously considered a Wii U, but were totally put of by the Wii U controller, which seemed clunky, annoying, and expensive to replace in case it breaks. It was the primary reason we went for the XBox One that generation.

We got a Switch pretty soon after it was released and love it (our daughter also has a Switch Lite).

[coldpie]

> We seriously considered a Wii U, but were totally put off by the Wii U controller, which seemed clunky, annoying, and expensive to replace in case it breaks.

You were right on all counts. It was a pretty terrible controller. Flimsy, heavy, way too big. And it was actually impossible to replace; they never offered replacement pads for sale, you had to buy a whole new console or find someone who fried their console and wanted to sell just a pad.

[JohnBooty]

    clunky

I thought it was totally fine. I spent a lot of hours gaming on that thing. I did not find it too heavy and anecdotally my friends' kids didn't either.

However, I can certainly understand that it looked massive and heavy. That was my assumption as well. Bit of a marketing issue there.

    annoying

It was more useless than annoying. Some games used it in slightly awkward ways, sort of like the early DS days when devs were experimenting (and being forced/encouraged by Nintendo to experiment with) new forms of control.

    expensive to replace in case it breaks

It was very durable in my experience. The screen is plastic, and ultimately I'd say it's just about exactly as durable as a DS or 3DS... after all, Nintendo knows how to build such things.

But, once again, your assumption totally made sense. Another marketing issue.

    It was the primary reason we [passed on it]

Me too. Then, a few years back, a friend gifted me one and I had a blast with it. Most of the best games wound up on the Switch though, so ultimately you did not miss out.

[Synaesthesia]

I do think it led to the switch concept which has been very successful for Nintendo, my friend who had a wii U thought it was great, but just wanted the tablet to have better battery life.

[ThatPlayer]

They actually sold a bigger battery at the time. Can't find much mention of it anywhere now, but Wikipedia lists it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_U_GamePad

> LiPo 3.6 V DC 2550 mAh (upgrade WUP-013; 8 hours use)

[jollyllama]

Agreed, the Wii U tablet controller was a proof of concept for the same form factor that would become the extremely successful Switch.

[causi]

The problem was that albatross of a gamepad. Not only did it have garbage battery life, but its presence led Nintendo to actively make games worse just to force mechanics onto the gamepad. Anyone else remember how godawful Star Fox Zero was, for absolutely no good reason?

[djur]

I really liked the Wii U pad and used it a lot. The Switch is a more fully realized version of the concept, but it has its downsides -- it's not as comfortable to hold and play for long periods, and the lack of a two-screen mode makes certain concepts less effective. Mario Maker, for instance, worked perfectly with the Wii U and feels compromised on the Switch in comparison.

The battery life was completely irrelevant to me. I just kept it plugged in.

[ThatPlayer]

Another example of the two-screen mode I liked was asymmetrical local multiplayer like Nintendo Land. It's not that it's impossible now, with two switches, but I haven't seen any games do it (with 4 players on a single switch, and 1 on the other).

[morelisp]

The Wii U's model doesn't really open up that many interesting asymmetrical multiplayer game designs, compared to multiple individual devices. There's a psychological effect of everyone being in the "same space" when most people are on one screen, but mechanically most of the time you'll want the opposite of what the Wii U can do - one person can see everything but everyone else can only see some limited view (c.f. Pac-Man Vs).

With individual devices, you can make a game where N people see something different, or N-1 people see the same thing and 1 sees something different, or where N people see the same thing (and maybe also something different, c.f. the Four Swords GBAs+GC model).

With the Wii U, you can make a game where everyone sees the same thing, or N-1 people see the same thing and 1 person sees that and something else. Even if you try to make the 1 person see something disjoint, it's too easy to cheat. And if you try to make everyone but one person see their own thing - too bad.

I always wondered why they never built something to render simple (or even complex, it can't be that costly) scenes out to multiple connected (3)DSs - relatively everyone with a Wii U must have had at least one...

[comex]

Smash Bros. for Wii U let you use a 3DS as a controller. It was awkward - you had to download the “Smash Controller” app onto the 3DS from the eShop - and didn’t have any kind of video streaming, but the connectivity was there at least.

[frosted-flakes]

Zelda Wind Waker was also great. You could assign weapons or items to the buttons whilr you were walking, or scroll through the map.

[GloriousKoji]

Breath of the Wild development started on the WiiU and I'm convinced it would have been better if they didn't have to shoe-horn in Switch support. The inventory menu of BOTW is horrible and totally was meant to be used real time on the gamepad.

[andrekandre]

i was surprised by that too

especially since the switch has a touchscreen, why is the inventory screen not using it?

[111111101101]

I always thought that the name was the cause. I don't follow Nintendo very closely so when I heard about the Wii U I just assumed it was a slightly enhanced Wii, not a separate console.

[jonny_eh]

I always found it pretty funny that the system's best game, Zelda: BoTW, features a tablet carried by the protagonist prominently in the game, but the game makes ZERO usage of the gamepad. This was likely a last minute change due to the decision to also make it a launch game for the Switch, and they didn't want people to say "the Wii U is better because you can manage your items on the game pad more easily".

[JansjoFromIkea]

It felt like they were pressured into putting out a new machine due to the extremely rapid decline in Wii console/game sales in 2009/2010 and had no choice but to go with the thing they were deepest into R&D with.

Thing felt like a failure the moment it was announced. Doubly so when its second E3 felt like a second attempt at the initial announce and still didn't do much to clarify what it had going for it. Triply so once you realised how limited it was.

That it took several years for games willing to engage with the platform enough to be capable of being as big of a mess as Star Fox Zero was seems like a bigger flag of its issues than the game sucking tbh. Just not an enticing format at all.

[herbst]

I bought a Wii U (my only console) just a few months ago. It's still amazing, you can download all available games for free directly from Nintendo.

The controller is meh, however most games also let you play with a pro controller. The screen on the Wii U brick is barely used.

And if you have a party or so just let them bring their Wii controllers, all the multiplayer games support them.

If you are not a classic gamer but are looking for some gaming fun it might still is the perfect console for you

[RajT88]

> you can download all available games for free directly from Nintendo

Eh? Like Wii Shop games which are WiiU only are all free?

If that's the case, I might dig mine out of the closet.

[philistine]

No you can’t. This comment is wrong. The Wii U is actually closing its shop and you can’t add funds to an account anymore.

https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/...

[DCKing]

The parent comment isn't wrong, but it's referring to piracy. The Wii U has been blown wide open such that tools exist that allow you to pirate games by downloading them directly from Nintendo's servers, essentially giving you free eShop downloads. Every game that's available for the Wii U digitally, is available for a pirated download. Straight from Nintendo.

[imran0]

>Every game that's available for the Wii U digitally, is available for a pirated download. Straight from Nintendo.

Oh wow, how did Nintendo manage to be this stupid?

[ace2358]

To be fair this has happened to other consoles like the ps vita. It’s possible to download the games from the online stores. The games can’t run because they’re signed, so it’s a simple http request to start the download.

Except the cryptography and security has been bypassed. So the consoles have a homebrew app that lets you download and install to console and pirate the game. All done on the console.

[brnt]

Whoops, I should refresh pages more often!

[weberer]

The Wii U was the first Nintendo console that I had no "must have" game at launch. Gamecube had Melee, Wii had Twilight Princess, Switch had Breath of the Wild. But there was nothing on the Wii U for a whole year until Pikmin 3 and Super Mario 3D World. It squandered their one year head start.

[faeriechangling]

I just think that without the draw of the motion controllers, the Wii U screen just really wasn't good enough to make the console worth using. The Nintendo switch was brilliant, you just had to think like a 13 year old to understand why that was always going to sell like gangbusters.

The games library was just too weak honestly, I think that was the main thing. The software problems were in large part caused by Nintendo under-speccing its machines catching up to it. Multiplatform's were particularly adversely affected.

All in all you were better off buying a PS4 honestly.

[philistine]

For me, the only use was buying one for cheap right after the Switch came out. Everybody and heir mother was getting rid of their games, so everything could be had for cheap (Nintendo cheap).

[vanderZwan]

Can you point me to more information about the GameCube part? Speaking as an owner of an almost broken down GC with a large library, and a very functional Wii U with a smaller one.

[duxup]

> Always felt like it deserved more popularity

I owned a Wii and loved it. To this day I don’t know what the selling point(s) of the Wii U were supposed to be.

I just don’t think it was marketed well.

[jrootabega]

I think if they had released a Zelda game meant for that platform, like everyone who bought one expected them to, they would have had a better time.

[astura]

Breath of the Wild was originally intended to be a Wii U exclusive, with a 2015 release date[1], but it didn't end up that way. The developers had some Wii U Gamepad features in early prototypes but found that looking between the gamepad and TV was distracting and axed them.

[1] https://www.polygon.com/2015/3/27/8303247/the-legend-of-zeld...

[anotherman554]

I feel pretty confident the Sheika slate was designed around the Wii U tablet and they only cut that aspect of the game to make the Nintendo Switch version look just as good as the Wii U version.

If a Nintendo employee claimed it was to avoid distraction I'm pretty confident they are lying.

[astura]

I read that here, my memory was a little off - https://web.archive.org/web/20170302073322/http://www.ign.co...

>"In doing our testing without the touch features we noticed looking back and forth between the Gamepad and the screen actually took a little something away from this type of Zelda game," he said.

>"There was no hesitation or reluctance in removing those features because we felt the way it is now is the best way to play the game," he added.

I can understand the cynicism, but, to me anyway, I agree that it's not ideal gameplay. The game pad was a big miss for me for anything other than being able to play a game when my husband was using the TV. I ended up kinda hating the gamepad.

So I believe both can be true.

[anotherman554]

Windwaker HD and Twilight Princess HD both let you have the map on the tablet while you play, and while I haven't tried it myself I'm told it's better than switching from one screen view to another.

On the Wii U only the tablet has motion controls, the pro controller does not, so at a minimum the game was designed to have you hold a tablet and make motions with it while Link holds his tablet and acts out that motion.

[astura]

I played Windwaker HD and Pikman 3, which also put the map on the Gamepad. I didn't like the map being on a different screen at all! In practice it ends up being such an obnoxious gimmick. (To me)

[jrootabega]

I don't want to dispute your experience, just add that in my experience, the game pad was perfect* for Batman: Arkham City. You would look down at it in the same situations where Batman would look down at his gadgets. So even though the game pad wouldn't work well for every game or every person, I think it had undeniable inherent benefits in some situations.

* They bungled the audio aspect, though. If you played with headphones, you couldn't route game pad audio through them.

[jrootabega]

i.e. "saving face".

[jrootabega]

And I think that was a bad decision and a soft betrayal of Wii U owners.

[BuckRogers]

I still have my Wii U plugged in and while that may be true, they made up for it by never charging for online service. No-charge access to Mario Kart 8 multiplayer has been great.

[eru]

> It came out in a weird time for technology and Nintendo always uses slightly older hardware.

Not always. The N64, for example, tried to be cutting edge.