Nintendo Wii U in 2022 - Retrospective Review

the nintendo wii u came out in 2012 and was the first of the new generation of consoles replacing the ever so popular nintendo wii it had a lot to live up to with the wii being one of the best selling consoles of all time but due to the poor and confusing marketing among many other missteps the wii u would quickly and quietly fade into obscurity hey how's it going i'm josh from 91 tech and today we're taking a look at what is considered to be one of nintendo's biggest failures the wii u what is this console all about why is it considered a failure and how does it hold up nearly a decade later [Music] we'll make this quick family time's dropping fast people time to upgrade to wii u with wii u we can play super mario 3d world find secrets with the wii u gamepad and did we mention togetherness just check out the simulation i look good look at that yeah look like i've been upgraded get the gift of family when you upgrade to wii u for 299.99 game rated e for everyone while there's no question that the wii u was a failure in both sales and cultural impacts the actual games for it from nintendo are considered by fans to be very solid many of them being rediscovered now as they're ported over to nintendo's switch so if you had a wii u back in the day and enjoyed it don't get me wrong me saying it's a failure doesn't mean it was necessarily a bad system in fact after using it a lot lately i actually think the opposite and many of the games still hold up the blame for the failure completely lies with nintendo for marketing it so poorly and failing to explain exactly what the wii u was not that the system didn't have its flaws because it did but really the marketing was just awful i remember having heated arguments with a friend back in middle school about whether or not the wii u was even a standalone console or just an add-on upgrade to the wii he thought it was an add-on and i knew that it wasn't so if he ever watches this and remembers it was him well told you so it is hard to blame him for thinking the way he did given the name of the console was wii u versus you know the wii very confusing it didn't help that advertisements and commercials for the wii u such as the one you just saw didn't really actually show much of the console itself the size of the gamepad alongside of course being terribly cringe-worthy but that's a discussion for another time the sales of the wii u totaled about 13.5 million about 8 million behind the gamecube which was also considered a commercial failure and unsurprisingly the wii u not having the same magic charm of the gamecube hasn't developed the same cult following after the fact although there are still definitely fans of the wii u the gamecube selling 21.7 million units doesn't seem that bad until you consider the playstation 2 of the same console generation managed to sell over 155 million units admittedly the best selling console of all time but 21 million 155 million it's fair to say nintendo was in a tough spot after the gamecube and had definitely lost the absolute chokehold of the market they had held until the sega genesis hit it big in the early 90s and then of course the original playstation came along perspective is important when looking at anything and the wii u is no exception it was named after its predecessor and going back to 2006 with the wii launch a new era of nintendo was just beginning the gamecube didn't perform well in sales the nintendo 64 before it failed to even touch the success of playstation and although nostalgia fueled fans have kept the consoles relevant in modern pop culture this isn't representative of the console's popularity when they were current nintendo was in a tough spot and some even thought they should just concede let sony and to a lesser extent microsoft win and purely make games and handhelds sega had gone a similar path going from the dreamcast to only making games including on nintendo consoles ironically enough and nintendo could have done that but also kept making handheld systems the game boy advance after all still was selling like crazy in fact at quadruple the rate of the gamecube but nintendo didn't do that instead they launched the wii they completely turned the company around selling 101 million units which beat both the playstation 3 and xbox 360 despite being replaced by a newer system a year before either of those two additionally the graphical power of the wii was way behind the time seeing in reality not much more than a gamecube in terms of technical capabilities but accepting full-sized disks and bringing motion controls the fact that they could compete so well and even beat microsoft and sony without having the best hardware was mainly due to three big reasons for one thing they were nintendo people always will buy nintendo people like mario for number two the lower powered hardware meant that the console was cheaper for parents looking to buy something for their kids it made more sense and thirdly there was the gimmick that made the wii what it was motion controls nintendo got the brilliant idea to set themselves apart from the rest of the gaming industry but the concept is so simple but so foreign make your console appeal to everyone not just any particular group this has its drawbacks but if it's done right it can cause exactly what the wii became a cultural phenomenon that took the world by storm the wii wasn't for your quintessential gamer it wasn't for kids it wasn't for adults it wasn't for anyone it was for everyone thanks to the straightforward concept of motion controls and the new types of gameplay that came with it it wasn't something completely new to video games but nintendo found a way of doing it that made it more streamlined and accessible than ever before and most importantly actually enjoyable the wii and wiimote brought games like wii sports that could be picked up and played by anybody from your 4 year old cousin to your 90 year old grandma it's just so simple but fun and that range of accessibility is what sold the wii even if the graphics weren't high definition and you probably wouldn't want to play the latest call of duty on it though in all fairness from what i hear those old call of duty games were actually pretty great on the wii but what you would play would be the latest mario games like mario galaxy which would utilize the wiimote and motion controls in new innovative ways this made the experience engaging and fun while also still feeling like a 3d mario platformer and in hindsight both mario galaxy 1 and 2 are justly viewed as some of the greatest video games ever made but as time went on and games continued getting more graphically impressive on xbox 360 and ps3 as well as the factor of consumers starting to more and more adopt high definition televisions the wii was quickly beginning to feel its age while on an older crt tv the wii's graphics looked fine hook it up to a larger hd widescreen and the low resolution and fuzzy textures would become immediately apparent the wii u was first conceived of in 2008 as nintendo saw the wii's fast road to obsolescence as well as the scary notion that the wii was a casual console for casual players not the core audience of gamers which was true to an extent and nintendo would unsuccessfully attempt to rectify it with the wii u when it comes to marketing to classic gamers versus casual players i think the nintendo switch got this right there's a certain middle ground that you need to find where you can appeal to both those groups from those who don't play a lot of video games but those who also do and the wii may not have had as great of a reputation with core gamers in the late 2000s as there is definitely this stigma that the wii wasn't a real console with no hd and the silly motion controls but there is a reason it sold so well that broad appeal was an essential component regardless nintendo didn't like that the wii was viewed as not being in the same class as the ps3 and xbox 360. they also recognized that the limitations of the wii's older hardware were the root cause high definition was of course going to be the main motivation to develop an upgraded console and there initially was speculation of an upcoming revision of the wii to come 2011 and be called the wii hd that would bring hd video and a blu-ray disc drive these rumors were shut down by the nintendo president however as he said there was no significant reason to bring hd to wii and that the addition would better fit the next generation of consoles it was also iterated that nintendo's focus was still on gameplay not so much graphical fidelity as had been a core aspect of the wii and one i think many of us can appreciate the switch today is a great example of how not necessarily having the greatest graphics doesn't really matter if the games are fun to play in 2010 nintendo of america president reggie said he felt confident that the wii had a very long life ahead of it and that no successor would come in the near future and then only a year later in the april of 2011 nintendo announced that a new console would be released in 2012. this is a day that many of us have been looking forward to for quite a while now nintendo wasn't dumb they knew that the motion controls on the wii were at least initially the true system seller so much so both microsoft and sony tried to replicate its success with the connect and playstation move both of which failed nintendo wanted another big name feature or gimmick i guess you could say that would become a system seller and drawing consumers away from the boring typical video gaming of competitors so this time around the gimmick came in the form of the gamepad something that as strange as it might seem was a genuinely innovative piece of technology it was an all-in-one touchscreen tablet and controller that served as a second screen for the base wii u system the design of it might look chunky thick and awkward but it's a lot more streamlined and simple than you might expect and it's surprising just how light and not uncomfortable the controller is when actually playing games i wouldn't go so far as to say i particularly enjoy using it over a more standard controller such as the wii u pro controller that you could purchase separately but it's not bad by any means battery life is probably my biggest complaint i'm also very much not a fan of the design the glossy plastic here means scratches and fingerprints are bound to be obvious and as often as i tried to clean this thing for the camera it still looks dirty in pretty much every shot it's not helped by the almost absurdly thick bezels and frame surrounding the 6.2 inch display but naturally there were going to be severe limitations when it came to making any kind of tablet 10 years ago nintendo clearly thought the drawbacks would be worth it for all the new gameplay features that could be implemented with a second screen that you could touch or move around features that might seem basic or even pointless now but they weren't at the time let's remember that this was happening not very long after the ipad had come out in 2010 and the tablet craze was in full swing touch screens were the next big thing and so of course nintendo had to bring it to gaming the announcement was met with massive skepticism and nintendo's stock dropped nearly 10 percent with concerns that the controller would be expensive and not as innovative as the original wiimote but that gamepad was the wii u supposed system seller and nintendo poured all their focus in showing it off so much so that there was a lot of confusion on what this wii u even was and as mentioned earlier a lot of people really just thought it was an upgrade to the original wii it didn't help that the wii u itself looked so similar to the wii being small and in black or white and just overall extremely unassuming but for better or for worse the nintendo wii u would launch in north america november 18 2012 and the darkest era in nintendo history began [Music] with the all-new wii u this is how you will play next [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the all-new wii u how you will play next while the wii u had its flaws and the gamepad has always been a source of controversy the hardware and console itself is about as solid as you could hope for from a 2012 system it was already kind of underpowered as soon as it came out and the 2013 xbox one and ps4 kind of put it to shame in terms of graphical ability and performance but this was a nintendo machine and they didn't really want to have the best system but instead the best experience the gamepad likely was a big part of the cost so it's not a big surprise they cut some corners in the making of the actual console and this was exactly the kind of upgrade that was needed over the wii originally there were two bundles for the wii u the basic bundle which came with a white wii u eight gigs of storage the gamepad and stylus and then there was the deluxe package which had a black wii u with 32 gigs as well as the gamepad it also came with nintendo land a nintendo network premium subscription yeah back then they actually had a service similar to playstation plus or xbox live gold as they do again now with nintendo online and the online for wii u as well as 3ds is actually still currently active although many of their services such as the miiverse have unfortunately been discontinued the deluxe also came with a stand and a wii remote sensor bar this was my younger cousin's console than i bought off of her just recently a few months back and i also got quite a few games with it everything from smash brothers to mario kart to undeniably the best game ever made for wii u or really any nintendo console of all time it's not even close hello kitty cruisers with sorry friends does it say sorry i don't actually know yeah i'm definitely gonna be trying this game but anyways looking at the console itself it's boring it really is it's just a plain box not dissimilar from the wii coming in a glossy plastic colored white or black we've got a disc tray on the front with an eject button to the left a power button there and then a sync button to the right of it under that flap we get an sd card slot which is a nice addition and two usb 2.0 ports flipping to the back we have the yellow ac adapter port red sensor bar connector black av multi out hdmi because high definition and then another two usb ports and honestly there's not a whole lot else worth noting besides the console doesn't stand upright like the first we could so not a big deal just a little bit different also four usb ports i believe that's actually more than the ps4 i'm pretty sure most ps4 models only had two usb ports there's not a lot to say here this has to be one of the most boring looking mainline consoles ever made by anybody but that does quickly improve when you take a look at the much more interesting gamepad it's essentially a tablet with two thick halves of a controller on either side actually kind of looking a lot like a chunkier switch or switch light or maybe a big psp or something it's extremely clear where the inspiration for the switch came from and the popular wish was that the gamepad was a standalone console fair to say that would play a large part in the future of nintendo the controller layout is a little bit odd with the joysticks and buttons being symmetrical on either side as opposed to the offset positioning on switch controllers today it's also symmetrical on the pro controller the gamepad is thick and chunky but gripping it and using it isn't too bad an experience albeit a bit awkward the tablet did have a lot of built-in innovations with of course the touchscreen but also a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera motion sensing a microphone a gyroscope an accelerometer a magnetometer it also had nfc capabilities which was really impressive attack for the time with iphone not even getting it until 2014 with the iphone 6 allowing for apple pay and whatnot as is still very popular today the nfc would be utilized by amiibos you know those extremely popular nintendo figurines that go for way too much money and are never taken out of the box by their owners the figure can be tapped to the gamepad allowing for cool in-game features such as bringing in a new character or something to that extent this is still a feature with the switch although not as advertised or prominent anymore amiibos were always going to be a cash grab but i have to admit they're kind of fun gotta be more useful than pop vinyls right those don't do anything the gamepad also came with a stylus there's a little slot for it just like the nintendo ds the stylus just adds yet another way to play games and do things on the gamepad and while it's not really a big major addition it's just yet another thing that makes the gamepad so special even if it definitely definitely had its flaws one of them being battery life the gamepad is supposed to last around three to five hours if it's been used heavily the battery will have degraded more than likely and so you might not even be getting three hours and charging it takes a long time this was before the days of fast charging and it can take over two hours to charge the gamepad the dock for the wii u i really like it plugs in with the wii u charging cable and then it has these little wheels and you literally just slide the wii u on and it magically charges i find that kind of neat but getting back on track the whole idea of the gamepad was to allow for the player to see games in a different way with a concept referred to as asymmetrical gaming as stated in nintendo's 2012 e3 press conference and it makes sense right you could theoretically have something like your map or rpg class options on the gamepad screen and then the main game on the tv it's a cool idea and one that doesn't really exist anymore on any system there is also the idea of always being connected so you could just pick up the gamepad and use your system without looking at the tv so you could use something like miiverse and its social networking functionality the gyroscope was there for shooter games as you can aim with motion controls instead of joysticks this is still a popular option today on nintendo switch in games like fortnite the display is 6.2 inches and has a resolution of 854 by 480 and can be used with your fingers or the included stylus the resolution of 480p definitely feels rough by today's standards but on this smallest screen it's actually not too bad and it's really not that much worse than the nintendo switch as that one only outputs 720p any higher a resolution would kill battery life and given this is from 2012 i'm very much cool with it so how does the gamepad even work obviously it's not the system itself so how does it get anything from the wii u basically there's wi-fi built in that's specifically optimized for low latency transmission which directly connects with the console through this the display streams from the actual wii u off tv play was the method of playing games away from your tv and solely on the gamepad which was absolutely awesome and i remember really wanting it back when the wii u came out you could play on your bed or something while your family used the tv for something else and that would have been an awesome addition for many a kid in a crowded household in practice though it wasn't great it works but the range isn't too far which is the biggest compromise really that's the issue with it using its own wifi network and not all games support off-tv play if asymmetrical gameplay is needed with the gamepad showing different content obviously you'll need both screens wii games from the original wii and virtual console games also weren't compatible with this in the beginning but a year later this was changed with the system update although an actual wii controller was still needed with the gamepad only serving as a screen and eventually even that was less of an issue as nintendo would re-release wii games digitally and fix them to work with the wii u's control scheme hold up let's back up here a little bit original wii games on the wii u having backwards compatibility was one of the biggest selling points of the wii u as it meant that you could potentially put your we away completely and solely use the new console for all of your favorite games there's no gamecube support unfortunately but having any form of backwards compatibility in 2012 was kinda huge with both the ps4 and xbox one having nothing similar at their launch in 2013 the xbox one eventually would allow for select xbox 360 titles to be played but still props to nintendo for the consumer friendly move by allowing wii games to be on the wii u it made sense as i've already stated the wii's biggest flaw looking back was the lack of high definition video 480p by the late 2000s and early 2010s just wasn't cutting it and so the wii u made that jump to the higher resolution with most games being playable at 720p and some select titles even going up to 1080p that includes super smash brothers 4 wii u which plays at an impressive 1080p with 60 frames per second and the legend of zelda windwaker remastered also hits 1080p but i believe with only 30 frames per second even so for the older wii u this is kind of impressive sure looking at the ps4 or xbox in comparison it's not going to come even close but if we compare the wii u more closely with the ps3 or xbox 360 will be painted a more accurate picture and the graphics in a lot of these games were very good to the point that watching this game play here probably doesn't look a whole lot different from what a switch is capable of nowadays and that's because it really isn't handheld the switch plays games in 720p and docked the switch can play up to 1080p depending on the game so no 4k and no significant performance boost from the wii u thanks to the entire machine being so small and portable but it does help the wii u age more gracefully and going to it from the switch doesn't feel a whole lot different besides the way you play the games and of course the 480p screen on the gamepad isn't as nice but playing on the tv feels really similar in fact a lot of the games are nearly exactly the same due to the switch having so many re-releases from the wii u's surprisingly large and impressive library of first party nintendo titles and hardly anyone got to play at the time due to well no one buying the wii u so let's take some time here and talk about the games both the best and worst aspect of the wii u [Music] and super smash brothers for wii u there's only one thing you'll be dreaming about this holiday play nintendo play wii u games rated e to e 10 plus [Music] let me start this section off by giving my full honest opinion the nintendo wii u has one of the best first party lineups of any nintendo console ever there i said it don't believe me listen to some of these games the majority of which were developed or at least published by nintendo super mario 3d world mario kart 8 captain toad donkey kong country tropical freeze hyrule warriors pokken tournament two super mario bros u new super luigi u xenoblade chronicles pikmin 3 wonderful 101 project zero maiden of blackwater lego city undercover and of course zelda breath of the wild these games just make up some of the highlights there's some more here and there please don't be offended if i don't mention your favorite game that being said you may have noticed a trend with all the games i listed every single one of those games has been ported over to the nintendo switch in some form or at least has a port in the works with the exception of breath of the wild as it released on both platforms at the same time but regardless the fact that such a large portion of the current game library for the switch is made up of wii u titles and hardly anyone played because hardly anyone owned a wii u is absolutely insane and just goes to show the strength of the lineup and if we look to games that haven't yet been released on switch the greatness doesn't end here nintendo lan came out at launch and was a shockingly fun party game that would use your me's i can honestly say my friends and i played a ton of this and had a lot of fun with it i didn't have a wii u when i was younger but my friend did actually a couple of them did but the game actually managed to utilize the gamepad in a well thought out and fun way where you could be playing in a completely different fashion by being the player with the gamepad compared to looking at the tv so it'd be like everyone versus the person using the gamepad we always especially enjoyed the ghost game where the player with a gamepad was a ghost visible only on the gamepad and had to avoid the other players who would be searching around luigi's mansion trying to find you just an all-around terrific pack and title that likely would have been remembered a lot more if this system had sold better paper mario color splash came out in 2016 and hasn't been ported over to the switch despite coming so soon before the switch launched it's uh controversial to say in the least among paper mario fans but it overall received good reviews and seems to be just a fun title and one that never got a lot of attention due to being on a system made obsolete literally six months later super mario maker was a fantastic concept and was executed so well on the wii u and gamepad of course we received a sequel for a nintendo switch and i'm gonna be honest here i think the game works better with the wii u gamepad and stylus i'm not sure if that's an unpopular opinion or not but i do think having two screens was a huge plus for the game especially with that stylus it's just easier to place things although playing the game it doesn't really matter either way and it's still a ton of fun on either platform the first splatoon came out in 2015 and like mario maker it would receive a sequel that was very similar to the original one but on the switch my experience with this game goes no further than knowing the character from smash brothers but the concept of the game was intriguing as you need to cover the map with more paint than the enemy team considered to be a family friendly team shooter the game received high praise and was one of the best selling games in the later half of the wii u's life speaking of smash brothers super smash brothers for wii u might have had the worst title of the series yeah that's the title super smash brothers for wii u but it did a great job of bringing the game into hd in 2014. this is a game i played a ton of with friends and it's definitely very similar at least in gameplay and graphics a smash ultimate for switch which is probably one of my favorite games ever made yoshi's woolly world was the first yoshi game on a main nintendo console since 1997 and reviews were generally positive although the stylistic choice with the wool like seen in the title kirby's epic yarn was a bit controversial to some the legend of zelda is one of the most popular and biggest franchises of nintendo and the wii u is one of the only consoles not to have an exclusive mainline game breath of the wild was supposed to be that but then it was delayed and made to be the big new release at the same time as the switch was releasing for obvious reasons they wanted to actually sell copies that being said even without an exclusive zelda title objectively speaking the wii u is actually the best console for hardcore zelda fans more so than the nintendo switch seems strange well all the main titles for the legendary franchise can be played on wii u from ocarina of time and majora's mask off the nintendo eshop to twilight princess and wind waker which both received fantastic hd remakes wind waker especially is a game i've never played but i have to say it looks absolutely fantastic thanks to the cell shading art style it's just held up so well similar to how breath of the wild will hopefully stand the test of time for years to come and breath of the wild i mean that's the big zelda game in recent years and it's on the wii u so if you're a zelda fan and want one system to play all the games the wii u is the one for you i suppose i will talk about the accessibility of the wii u later as having the majority of wii games compatible as well as the controllers was one of the best things about the console and as a brief thought here one thing i always felt nintendo did really well was the whole miiverse social media side of things yeah it was useless as an actual social media service but the inner connectivity of people commenting on games and drawing little pictures with the gamepad and seeing all the little me's running around it was really unique and fun just something that gave the system a lot of personality i'm not really a big fan of this ui in general i do think it's a bit over complicated and the basic nintendo switch one serves its purpose much better in my opinion but there's a lot of charm to it to be sure with the whole skeuomorphism look that's become so rare in modern design yeah i'm not huge on the bright white all the time i prefer dark modes but that was kind of like the wii and wii u it just fit however navigating around the wii u especially when you were pretty full on the very low internal storage it could be painfully slow and frustrating to use the leg is a common occurrence and you might as well go make a coffee when trying to load in certain apps or games plus trying to get to the menu from a game would close it all together that's a relic of the past i sure am glad we've moved on from in recent generations of consoles but that's how it is on the wii u in those games i suppose we should go back to that at this point hopefully i've convinced you of the strength in that first party wii u lineup all the games i've mentioned so far were published by nintendo and most of them developed by them as well so what's the problem because there has to be a problem right this console didn't sell well well i kind of just named like all the good games for the console because there was so little third party support it started off well enough with aaa titles like assassin's creed 3 and 4 mass effect 3 batman arkham city and origins raymond legends resident evil revelations call of duty black ops 2 and ghosts darksiders 2 tekken tag tournament 2 need for speed most wanted some lego titles deus ex human revolution there were some strong indie titles like terraria shovel knights and that's all great and fun but most of those games came out in like the first couple years and they all came to other systems as well as for games made by third party developers solely for wii u you really don't have very many big titles there's the launch game zombie u which was heavily marketed but received mixed reviews and best sonic lost world which eventually did come to pc and seems to be remembered mostly positively albeit mario galaxy ripoff minecraft wii u edition which is guess what just minecraft for the wii u but we'll say that counts and what the vast majority of all these games have in common is that they're from the early 2010s namely within a couple years of the launch of the wii u i'm sure there's a lot of hidden gems out there but big developers almost immediately halted development or the wii u for a multitude of reasons none of which are particularly hard to guess the hardware of the wii u was roughly on par with the xbox 360 and ps3 despite it being about eight years newer a year after the wii u's release the ps4 and xbox one came out and far surpassed it power wise which meant that ports that did come to the wii u were downgraded meaning it got a game similar to what was being made for the 360 and ps3 and once those last generation games had stopped being made it became a pain for developers to still make a game for the lower powered wii u that wasn't selling well in the first place for example assassin's creed 4 came out for wii u in 2013 along with ps3 and xbox 360 and then 2014's assassin's creed unity was next gen only but in 2014 they also released a game specifically for the ps3 and xbox 360 in assassin's creed rogue but they didn't make it for the wii u even though black flag had been on the nintendo system sidenote black flag is one of my favorite games of all time it was also a game that got a port over to nintendo switch go figure watch dogs also came out for wii u which surprised me but it did release on ps3 and 360 at its launch in 2014. ubisoft was one of the last holdouts they initially had a lot of games for wii u most the ones i've mentioned and it's too bad for the owners of the wii u that they would eventually jump ship as well developers didn't see the use for the gamepad sales dropped off super fast after launch and it didn't help that nobody knew what the heck the wii u was the brand recognition wasn't there and if we're being real can you really blame game publishers for not wanting to spend money on something that was unlikely to make them any money the best example of just how disregarded the wii u was to game devs is from ea of course it's ea they made fifa 13 for the wii u and lots of other platforms and then the next year in 2013 made fifa 14 for basically every single platform on the planet except for wii u i'm not really kidding by the way it was on android ios windows 3ds wii xbox 360 xbox one ps4 ps3 even freaking ps2 esp and ps vita i'm not sure what's more insane than it came out for ps2 psp and vita or that it was on wii in 3ds but not the wii u the simple reason is that fifa 13 really didn't do well on the platform clearly and so i guess it just wasn't worth making another although the fact that they made one for the ps2 is pretty darn telling before we fully move on here there's one more game for the wii u i want to cover rayman legends a direct sequel to 2011's rayman origins this was a series finding new life long after its early playstation heyday and it was said to be one of the definitive titles available at the wii u's launch being announced at the 2012 e3 expo it was to be exclusive to the wii u launching november 30th 2012 only to be delayed that october into the coming year specifically february 26th this delay was made purely to finish the game completely as it just wasn't ready yet but it wouldn't take long for it to be finished and it was said to be fully ready for the wii u by the new launch date but there was a problem ubisoft saw the financial disaster that was zombie u their first big exclusive for the new system and they were concerned a similar fate lied in store for rayman legends one of their most promising upcoming titles now this was a flawed mentality from the gekko for one big obvious reason of course a game based on a mature theme like zombies wasn't going to sell terribly well at the launch of a new nintendo system especially when they were clearly marketing it towards children while perhaps later it could have found some success when the console was in the hands of a wide array of users it just didn't make sense when most would be buying the system from mario and the like not shooting zombies rayman legends actually fit this mantra perfectly being a fun for all ages platformer but ubisoft made the controversial decision to push the launch altogether until september 2013 so that the game could release for ps3 and xbox 360 at the same time as wii u obviously fans were upset that the wii u version was ready to go according to the developer but was being delayed anyways why ubisoft didn't just release it for the wii u in february and bring it to other consoles later is beyond me but have no fear a demo for the game had released december 2012 and when this new delay happened in the backlash hit ubisoft proudly proclaimed that the wii u and their lucky owners would get yet another exclusive demo in the future i may be paraphrasing slightly but as you can guess the reception to this wasn't particularly positive even the actual developers themselves were unhappy with the situation and all this was just clearly some typical corporate shenanigans unfortunately though mint still happened and it was an early nail in the coffin that the wii u was already halfway into you could definitely argue that while this did have an impact it wasn't necessarily nintendo's fault and you would be right but i do personally feel like nintendo should have stepped in here perhaps paid to make the game a timed exclusive for the first year but whether you blame nintendo or not it was just yet another early disaster in the life of the wii u something that did not bode well for its future the lack of support so early on killed any momentum the wii u had the market of people who only wanted to buy nintendo titles was certainly still there but this wasn't a cheap console and for many families it would be the only one they would buy for the entirety of the generation if your taste in gaming expanded past the initially pretty small library of mario type titles then the ps4 or the xbox one was just the obvious choice for you this butchered nintendo's chances at properly competing immediately and fresh owners of the wii u were in for a long half decade of disappointment until the launch of nintendo's next system [Music] [Music] [Music] the wii u had one of the shortest lifespans of any mainline video game system from late 2012 to early 2017 with the release of the nintendo switch and it's pretty clear why nintendo had enough with the very clearly failed system and wanted to cut ties as soon as they could but during the time the wii u was around they didn't really do a whole lot to fix the major issues that plagued those sales numbers and i'm not even really talking about the flaws with the console itself but more of the whole entire marketing strategy that little ad spot you just saw introducing me's to super smash brothers as a character is without a doubt the absolute best commercial produced during the wii u's tenure i'm sure there's some other gems here and there but from the way too many ads that i watched that was without a doubt the most entertaining and quite frankly one of the best video game ads i've ever seen why was this ad so great it might seem funny but a bit meaningless if you don't know the two men fighting one is and i apologize for butchering probably both of these names in advance satoru iwata and unfortunately now deceased former presidents and ceo of nintendo and absolute legend in the video gaming world the other was reggie visamay the now retired former president of nintendo of america these are the two guys who would come on stage and introduce games the figureheads of the company to see them square off with some hilariously fantastical stunts and a fight super smash brothers style it's just an absolute joy and i think that novelty is there even if you don't know who these two men were and i don't even think this was like an official ad as much as like a trailer for the new me character coming to smash bros but it's so awesome and for me this really highlights a big problem that was magnified during the wii u's lifetime nintendo just kept digging their own grave by doubling down on their absolutely awful garbage to your marketing by the time they started to wise up the wii u was already dead in the water and the switch was right around the corner if you search youtube for wii u ads you'll find dozens of compilations with millions of views showing the absolute cringiest of the cringe-worthy just so many ads that all scream hey kids we're hip by our system now please well and actually in some cases it was just marketing to much younger children but we'll get to that and i think the worst one i'm not even going to show in this video because it's really long it's like four minutes but it's an ad about super smash brothers and yeah that's i think steve from stranger things and you can just tell that they're really trying to be funny and just falls flat it's really bad where did this all go wrong the ads with the kids and their parents might have been pretty bad but it's easy to see an actual parent watching that and thinking that a wii u would be a great christmas present so what's the problem here something that's been an issue for a long time is advertisements targeting children from comic books in the 1900s to the rise of television and especially kids cartoons the idea quickly arose that you didn't want to market to the parents even if they were the ones buying the product you would want to market towards the children kids are stupid they see something on tv and want it it sounds trivial and even rude but it's true i was like that as a kid you were like that as a kid every kid is like that young children don't understand the difference between an advertisement versus just a fun toy on the screen there's no cognitive ability there to comprehend that you're being advertised to and to know that the objective is ultimately to take advantage of you and sell whatever product is the subject of the advertisement this is a cynical take but it's true and there are a number of regulations in place to make sure ads don't go too far although obviously how effective this is is debatable but once that advertiser has the kid wanting the toy they know that they're gonna go and beg their parents to get it pestering them relentlessly and then if they see that ad every day while watching their favorite cartoon those efforts to sway mom and dad into buying something that they'll probably only play with once are going to be accelerated you remember those old commercials that used to play on like cartoon network and whatnot hot wheels barbies you name it take this one for example you may notice that the actors look a bit older than maybe you would expect to be the target demographic and that's a hundred percent intentional why because kids see older kids playing with these toys and it subconsciously affirms to them that they would look cooler and older like that while they were playing with those hot wheels too it's basic marketing kids tend to look up to older kids and then kids that would maybe be on the fringe of playing with these toys see that they're not younger children playing with them and that helps appeal to them as well as opposed to nintendo who was supposedly making a console meant for all ages if you're 13 12 even like 10 years old and you see this commercial of clearly very young kids telling their parents how bad they need a wii u for family fun time it's gonna be a hard sell convincing those young teens that this is a cool system and one they need over the ps4 or xbox one that marketed itself towards a much more mature audience ps4 commercial would have explosions and guns these are the things say a 12 year old boy wants to see not like a 10 year old kid telling his mom how bad he wants a wii u this has been a strategy for a long time the sega genesis was really great with its marketing too and so nintendo ends up going about this completely the wrong way and it's crazy because the wii was marketed perfectly you don't need explosions in your ads that's a very specific demographic you want to market to everyone though you don't just have kids with the wii for example an early ad shows two very professional looking japanese businessmen going door to door with a wii and just playing with these random families it's nonsensical sure but it's also wholesome and engaging it's just kind of funny you see this and you want to watch it it also shows that the console is fun for everyone regardless of age nationality gender profession you name it it doesn't matter what groups you belong to even in that second ad i showed where there's a wider variety of age groups playing wii u there's too much of a focus on kids and when there's an adult usually it's just a parent playing with their kid they do show a young couple but they're not playing games they're streaming a movie yeah it's good to show that the console can stream movies but by around 2012 a good portion of people already had a console capable of this including the original wii which ran netflix you're not showing this is a fun console for all ages you're showing it's fun for kids and then adults can also watch movies on it the entire subject of the horrible marketing surrounding the wii u has been beat to death already on the internet but i did just kind of want to reemphasize how bad it was and how it did really contribute to the wii u never selling well and immediately losing the chance to establish a foothold in that generation of gaming the switch has done an exponentially better job of this showing young adults as opposed to children playing the switch in groups at parties this is what appeals to the younger audience and it looks fun to the older one too and you know marketing is not the only factor obviously but nintendo has gotten a lot better at advertising in recent years and that's something worth commending especially after their years of horrible horrible marketing with that wii u though i'll be darned if i wouldn't love some more reggie vs iwata type ads in my life overall it might have felt like the wii u's lifespan was painfully drawn out as slowly as possible though in reality as previously mentioned it didn't even reach a full five years of being the best nintendo system from late 2012 until early 2017. compare that to the playstation 4 or xbox one which both survived from 2013 to 2020 albeit with better pro models in between or the nintendo wii from 2006 to 2012. the nintendo switch is about as old now as the wii u was when the switch was launched if you can believe that it's crazy but it's true and yet i don't think the switch is getting replaced anytime soon if you were a wii u owner you were kind of screwed over from the get-go from being promised exclusives that wouldn't happen they're just waiting on nintendo to drop games because they were the only ones making them and yeah a lot of the games were really good but when you stretch it over a pretty long period of time it's not an ideal situation and that latter half of the wii u really felt quite sparse in terms of new content to play the switching comparison so far at least has had a constant and steady stream of new games coming out even if a good number of those are just ports and rehashes of wii u titles i think it all didn't help that the wii u never really had that game that everyone got excited for you know what i mean i must play must buy masterpiece that was a system seller all on its own yeah super mario 3d world got very positive reviews and was generally well received with some praising it as one of the best mario titles but let's be real it's not nearly as exciting or eye-catching as a mario 64 or a mario galaxy the switch on the other hand had two must-play titles in its first year and hasn't looked back since those two titles zelda breath of the wild and mario odyssey both heralded as absolute gems in the gaming world and some of the greatest games of all time not just nintendo games but of all of them in general they are amazing games yeah breath of the wild did come out on wii u but it was just as the switch was launching so i don't really count it as any kind of system seller for the older console it was really nice though for those who had stuck with the wii u over so many years and weren't ready to go out and buy the switch straight away horrible marketing strategy assigned what didn't help at all was the subject of said marketing the wii u was a difficult console to advertise and we've already beat the whole no one knew what this console was to death something that probably could have been fixed as easily as having a name for the system without the word we in it seriously calling it we you really just made it sound like an extension of the wii but i digress even if you did understand what it was it's hard to argue that it was a particularly enticing purchase yeah the gamepad tablet had a touchscreen yeah it worked as a second screen from the tv and yes it was somewhat innovative and cool for the time but tablets in general were hugely popular at this point so no one was gonna buy it for the game playing abilities on the tablet controller itself plus regular tablets like the ipad were all in one no need for a tv at all this should sound familiar to a certain device and if the technology had been possible for the switch to exist in 2012 i have zero doubt in my mind that console would have outsold the xbox one and ps4 combined but of course that tech didn't exist yet and there was no killer feature on the wii u to the same extent of the 2006 wii and its motion controls which is novel and ultimately quite gimmicky as those were still had a real draw to it that was very appealing during a time in video game history where things were getting a bit stale from the ps2 to ps3 or xbox to 360 there wasn't a ton of immediate noticeable revolutionary changes with the better hardware not really being a factor until later on when high definition and then the ps3's case blu-ray really started to take off in popularity thus the nintendo wii with its fun for the whole family motion controls as well as a much cheaper price point just seemed like the logical buy and there's no question if fully delivered on those promises for millions and millions of users and what the wii u didn't have was that same killer feature the gamepad just wasn't it and it also wasn't significantly cheaper than competing consoles at a time when those competitors kept getting better and better with that massive leap in power not to mention that nintendo wii was still a great console and was selling well into the wii u's life when the wii u came out you could buy both a wii and 3ds for the same price as the new console the reasons for the wii u's ultimate failure are numerous and seemingly unending from the marketing the confusion the lack of gamepad implementation even in most of nintendo's own titles little to no third party support outside the first couple years the underpowered hardware that still costed too close to a better console the wii u was just not an appealing console unless you were going out of your way to purchase a nintendo machine that wasn't enough as seen by the lowest sales of any home console nintendo's ever made besides the absolute monstrosity that was the 1990s virtual boy for the entirety of the wii u's life it felt as if nintendo was both wanting people to buy it but also trying to shift away from it that all makes sense come the release of the switch in 2017. in today's world with the switch being as big as it is it's hard to believe that it wasn't so long ago nintendo felt completely irrelevant in the video game landscape with the 3ds being old news and the wii u feeling like more of a joke than anything else but it didn't change the fact that the wii u was still quite enjoyable and had that wide range of accessibility and how you could play it that made it a very positive experience for many of its users and even today you might be surprised how much prevalence the wii u still holds among nintendo enthusiasts in the community from the all-in-one ultimate nintendo console to home brewing and emulation it's hard to call the wii u a dead system in any way even if it was undeniably a failure so what's new with the wii u is this really how we will play games in the future or is it just a gimmick in terms of what competition is going to do in the future we'll see we know that based on our own development this two screen gaming experience really is the next innovation that consumers are gravitating to it's selling extremely well here in the americas already uh stocks are quite low in the marketplace we're rapidly replenishing and so for us certainly the consumer is deciding that that the innovation is well worth their investment in spite of the many shortcomings of the wii u as with any nintendo console it has managed to attract its own dedicated community centered around it featuring those who genuinely love the way the wii u plays as well as those who really enjoy the homebrewing scene and pushing the system to its limits the wii u with some work can really be the ultimate nintendo machine with any console up to the wii u being basically playable either via emulation or the games being able to play natively any wii game is backwards compatible with the wii u so you can just plop in a wii disk and it'll work gamecube games on wii u is only possible with homebrewing which is a process similar to jailbreaking an iphone or rooting an android if you're unfamiliar and i think it's something a lot would consider a necessity at this point for most wii u owners or at least those still actively playing it while it might seem intimidating at first it's not difficult to do and it can be quite a bit of fun though of course you need to be careful as particularly when it comes to acquiring games to play pirating is very much illegal and the whole emulation scene can be a bit of a gray zone in general this would be a fantastic time for me to integrate a vpn sponsorship but unfortunately i don't have one so i'll just say don't do the crime if you can't do the time now that's not legal advice i just like that it rhymes anyhow looking at things from a modern perspective the near decade old wii u certainly has aged but as mentioned earlier it benefits massively in holding up thanks to the relatively low powered hardware of the nintendo switch it can play in high definition although to be fair that isn't the same draw than it used to be in fact it's just the bare minimum at this point and really has been for a good few years the new fad is 4k and as of march 2021 approximately 44 of us households that have tvs have one that is 4k capable and mind you that's compared to only 31 in 2019 some massive growth at this point if you want to buy a tv it's hard to find one that's not 4k and as time keeps moving onwards 4k will become more and more overwhelmingly common as people finally upgrade their old tvs now i'm not going to go off on too much of a tangent or anything this video is already way too long but what i'm trying to get at here is that the nintendo switch currently not having 4k is a huge downside especially with the releases of the playstation 5 and xbox series x already a year ago i wouldn't be surprised if nintendo does sell an updated model of the switch within the next year or maybe two but as of right now in late 2021 they don't and this all really helps the wii u hold up the hardware is not that far off from what the switch can do and it also brings in this whole nother element of the wii u although it doesn't involve the console itself if you have a capable computer there is a very well built emulation application called cemu which allows you to play wii u games off your computer i won't be saying how to set this up or anything as again legal gray areas but it's super cool to get these already really good looking games like breath of the wild up and running at even 4k looking better than ever i have a friend who used the wii u emulator i think a couple years back to fully beat breath of the wild like look at this footage captured here i'm sure with youtube compression it's gonna be hard to get a proper impression of how beautiful it really is in a higher resolution even if it wasn't made for it it is really cool and hooking this up to like a big tv from a pc that's pretty awesome but you do need a pretty decent pc to run something like this and ultimately it still looks great on both the wii u and the switch i just wanted to show it off more than anything else and for the record the nintendo switch also has a pretty decent emulator floating around out there personally i've never messed with it and i don't believe it's as complete but it's still pretty cool this is all possible beyond emulating the wii u the system itself can do quite a bit of emulating on its own thanks to home brewing as already mentioned being able to play games from the n64 snes and nes is a fantastic experience not to mention even some older games from non-nintendo systems like say the sega genesis and if the thought of hacking your console makes you a little bit queasy have no fear the nintendo wii u e-shop still has a huge selection of games downloadable and playable via what they call the virtual console such as here linked to the past and this song makes for the overall most complete collection of nintendo titles from any system they've ever made the switch pales in comparison to what the wii u is capable of in terms of playing these older games in fact if you remember going back a bit i talked about the wii u being the ultimate zelda machine and that's true but what's even more crazy is that it's really the ultimate nintendo machine and right now it's pretty much capable of playing every single game they've ever made at least up to the switch era and even then there's not really a whole lot missing from the lineup now yeah you won't be playing mario odyssey or animal crossing new horizons on wii u but if you look at all the games being sold for switch right now a ton of them have been ported over from the wii u or just being a very similar version of a wii u title such as splatoon 2 or mario maker 2. and get this the best selling switch game as of september 30th 2021 is mario kart 8 deluxe at nearly 39 million copies and remember that's literally just mario kart 8 from 2014 with only a few minor additions i think nintendo saw how poorly the wii u sold and took advantage of that to essentially re-release many of their best games to a whole new audience something that's been clearly very successful for them and while it's kind of annoying that switch games never really get anything in the way of price reductions with titles from 2017 still often costing what they did four years ago i do think it's really cool that people like me who never had a wii u when it was relevant still get to experience the best of what it had to offer and in some cases nintendo has already taken a really great game such as super mario 3d world brought it to switch and then also pack in basically a fully new small game with bowser's fury that kind of combines the gameplay of 3d world and mario odyssey for what many reviewers have called the best 3d mario experience yet it does bug me when nintendo was lazy like with new super mario bros u deluxe as if the title wasn't long enough already but when they really take the time to not only add improvements to their older games that even build upon the foundation to create something actually better that's just straight up awesome and it's not something you really see in the video gaming industry very often i don't want to give nintendo too much credit because ultimately their end goal is still just to make money but still it's hard not to respect the insane turnarounds they've pulled off in only about a half decade i am really excited to see where they go from here you shouldn't buy the nintendo wii u nearly a decade after it launched not because it feels old not because the gamepad is clunky or even bad in any way in fact the more i've used the gamepad the more i've actually liked it even if it seems oversized it's quite light and feels surprisingly comfortable to use the wii u might just be the most complete nintendo system to date but you shouldn't buy it because it never sold too well in its heyday and unfortunately it's still quite expensive on the used market and i kinda doubt that'll ever change going to ebay.com the wii u trends at a price anywhere from a hundred dollars and up usually up with the more you pay tending to include accessories and games bundled in you shouldn't buy one unless you find one heck of a deal whether it be on ebay or on a local marketplace like craigslist as it really just doesn't seem worth it to me when the nintendo switch isn't that much more in comparison mind you the games for the switch are insanely expensive but on the wii u they're not that much better some games are still pretty cheap for the wii u but depending on the title they do seem to be trending upwards when it comes to cost if you're wanting a wii u purely for the homebrew scene do keep in mind that the older wii is super cheap nowadays and can do pretty much anything the wii u can except for play wii u games and output high definition video now if you already have a wii u and are looking for an excuse to break it out again that's a completely different story and i'd argue it's still worth a place on your entertainment unit ideally right next to your nintendo switch as much as i've talked up the wii u here there's still no question the switch is by and far the superior console and there's nothing quite like being able to play home console games the quality of breath of the wild on the go truly on the go not just nearby some kind of host system like with the wii u but being able to play anywhere and everywhere on a small tablet like this it's awesome the nintendo switch is both the present and the future but there's nothing wrong with recognizing the wii u as the past even if nintendo would prefer you forget it was a decent console based around an innovative concept albeit one not nearly as appealing as nintendo had anticipated and nintendo left it dead in the water just like third party developers did there were still some admittedly great games made for it but for the most part you just saw a strong launch followed by years of disappointment that unfortunately is the legacy the wii u leaves behind even if it does deserve recognition for so much more in the very least i'm glad we got to take a bit of a look at it today well honestly i could probably spend another hour talking about some of the games or nintendo's strategy i think it's probably best to end things here apologies if i missed anything crucial and make sure you comment your experiences i i really want to see how many of all of you have actually owned the wii u and hopefully enjoyed it if you found the video interesting maybe hit that like button and consider subscribing for more content similar to this and if you like these kind of longer videos i'll link some of my others in the description below also in the description will be my socials if you feel like following me at 91 underscore tech that'd be pretty cool with that all being said thank you so much for watching this video might have taken forever to put together but i did have a lot of fun doing it i'm josh from 91 tech and i will see you all next time [Music] [Music] bye

Channel: 91Tech

Views: 586,506

Keywords: nintendo, nintendo wii u, wii u, wii, switch, nintendo switch, mii, miiverse, mario, 3d world, bowser, wii u review, 2021, 2022, mario kart, mario party, gamepad, review

Id: AgibZPCkreQ

Length: 58min 58sec (3538 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 02 2021