Well Nintendo's new console has released and the internet has lit up with all sorts of discussion about their new console, well I am here to give my take on what I think of the wiiU and the upcoming 8th gen.While I hardly ever commented on wiiU before its release I'm beginning to think my concerns about the console was justified.
Firstly the most important issue the Gamepad .
"Have you been under a rock its the power that's most important haven't you seen the threads on vgchartz huh?
No its not the power of the console that matters the most this is a nintendo console after all.I personally since it was revealed have never liked the idea of the gamepad, as a matter of fact I don't know how it even got approved by nintendo designers since its several step backwards on the design philosophies of the wiimote. I remember reading back when the wii was released that it was designed to be simple ,and most importantly for me, was that when other people saw someone playing with the wii that they would want to play also because of how intuitive the controls were. Now it seems that all this was thrown out the window as this gamepad seems to be the most complex control scheme ever done.As of yet nothing has been shown, on my part, that shows the gamepad being an integral part of game design.
"But there is asymmetrical gameplay you obvioulsy have not been playing the wiiU."
Well as I said this type of gameplay is not something that looks intuitive or fun for onlookers or anyone for that matter, as most times the gampad appears to be forced into multiplayer gameplay or the gamepad is just used for single player.
"But I can use my gamepad to do all sorts of cool non game stuff also, like a universal remote and I'm quoting you from my wiiU."
Which leads to another problem, if gamers buy nintendo consoles to play nintendo games why would they care about non game features that the gamepad can do, the non game features of the gampad should not even be a talking point for the console according to nintendo own console design philosophies because they usually design a console around thier games not the non game features.
"But the nintendo games will be coming and in HD."
And here is the interesting part about that, as noted by many people games like NSMBU and other games that are appearing on their consoles will not really benefit much from a graphic boost. The games that currently stand to gain the most from an improvement in graphics are The Legend of Zelda series and the Metriod series and this is where the trick is. These two series in their last iteration on consoles used drastically different controls from traditional controllers (which the gamepad is btw if you have not noticed) and for the most part was well received as an improvement over the traditional controls (motion control and menu interface for zelda and IR controls for metroid prime). It will be interesting to see how nintendo plans to satisfy fans of both control methods (wiimote vs gamepad) without alienating the other or possible fan backlash.
Now this console was created to attract 3rd party developers, as the wii problem was it was too underpowered apparently, now to the wii's benefit it had tremendous sales thanks to the type of games wii had, using the wiimote, that appealed to everybody. Without these types of games on the wiiU, I don't even think a wiimote is packaged with the console would it even be able to gather the sales momentum of the wii and how will 3rd party developers react if it doesn't? Which will leave nintendo in a difficult situation.
Also since it is becoming obvious that the wiiU is not a giant graphical leap over the ps3 or 360, although I don't know why people expected that, for my part I think its a Genesis to Snes improvement let's see how many of you get that reference. Why would gamers who already have a ps3 or 360 buy a wiiU for these ports, the wiiU offers nothing visually (at the moment) or gamplay wise above the other console counterparts.
And this marginal difference in power of the wiiU over the previous gen also leaves Sony and MS in a very delicate situation, they are left with the option to either hold off on their next gen consoles because the PS3 and 360 would be able to receive any ports from the wiiU that does not use the gamepad second screen uniquely.Sony stands to benefit the most from this as they can continue to gain revenue from there existing PS3 instead of taking further losses with the PS4.
Why would they have more losses if they release a ps4 you say?
Because whether you like what I am saying or not Sony and MS games are heavily reliant on graphics to appeal to their fanbase if they release a console that is only marginally more powerful than the ones they have now their fanbase would more than likely move to the most powerful console, admit it you would not see any reason to spend more money on a new if its just a little graphic boost. Now if only one develops a more powerful console this can leave them out in the cold as 3rd party might be reluctant to use the console full power.
This 8th gen will be an interesting one indeed for everyone involved. Thoughts???
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