MCV: Wii U Is A Stopgap System, Real Successor Is Still To Come

Posted Fri, 19 Oct 2012 | 13:00 BST by Damien McFerran

"It was never intended as a next generation console"

Video game trade site MCV Pacific has posted an interesting opinion piece which speculates that the Wii U is merely a stopgap to lift Nintendo's flagging fortunes following the false start of the 3DS (in the west, at least) and plummeting Wii sales.

The Wii U hasn't been given a new moniker, but rather a tacked on brand extension of a title. This gives Nintendo an easy out if the Wii U doesn't work.

"It was never intended as a next generation console", they'll say as they distance themselves from it three years down the track and come out with a 'real' successor which can match the grunt of the next Sony and Microsoft offerings. "It was part of the Wii family, but this is what we're actually doing for the future of gaming."

Nintendo are quite happy for everyone else to sing about the Wii U being the next big thing for now. It only helps them satisfy investors. Just remember when the next Nintendo console comes out and the Wii U appears to be a little less next gen than you were expecting, it wasn't Nintendo who made the claim - it was hungry and desperate gamers tired of the current generation, eager to herald the new era without properly waiting for the flag to drop.

While many will point out that this is an outlandish suggestion, consider this: when the DS was announced in 2004, Nintendo was quick to point out that it wasn't the successor of the Game Boy, but instead a 'third pillar' in Nintendo's hardware portfolio.

This hinted that the company expected the Game Boy to continue its dominance, while the DS would offer an alternative platform for portable players. As we all know, the opposite happened - the DS became the biggest selling handheld of all time, while the Game Boy brand was put to bed not long afterwards, following dismal sales of the Game Boy Micro.

Is a similar situation happening with the Wii U, but this time without Nintendo making public its 'third pillar' aspirations? Could the Wii brand be overtaken by an entirely new console before the end of the next console cycle?

What are your thoughts on this viewpoint? Is the Wii U destined to have a short lifespan, allowing Nintendo to keep up with the likes of Sony and Microsoft before releasing what will be its true next-generation console? Or is MCV just blowing a load of hot air? As ever, the comments section is the place to voice your opinion.

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2012/10/mcv_wii_u_is_a_stopgap_system_real_successor_is_still_to_come

This is complete bullsh**

I like ur Sig OP. Did you make it yourself because it looks like Khans sig and I think I have seen it somewhere else.

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=140966&page=491

you can also click on it. It's a link to the original creator.

internet is a place where anyone with a keyboard and a mouse can write and say whatever they want... it does not matter if it is a logical argument or a lot of bullshit; they always get what they want... "attention", to be stars for  a minute at least. what a lot of s*** in so short paragraph.

People who claim it isn't a next gen system are just likely to use this article as more 'ammunition'. People who bought wii stopped playing it mid way through it's life cycle as games stopped coming. Yet nintendo kept supporting it. They won't just drop wii u 3 years in.

Simply looking at the motherboard and CPU/GPU design you can tell the Wii U has been designed for years:

Small, efficient, well laid out with little/no waste

I can understand people who question how successful Nintendo's strategy will be, but it is very obvious that this is the system they have been planning on releasing for years; and it wasn't simply thrown together in the last minute as a stopgap measure.

Wow those sigs are sick. Sicknatures. Too bad there are no bayonetta 2 or Wonderful 101 sigs yet.

He's taking it a bit too far.  Yes you can argue that Wii U is an extension, or steady progression of this gen (nothing wrong with that, honestly).  However, the writer is stating the obvious, in regards to Nintendo's "third pillar" rhetoric.  Nintendo's a smart company, and well prepared if their product fails to catch on.  To ride or die with 1 idea is too risky, I'm sure Nintendo has a lot going on in their labs.

The problem with this opinion, is judging what the Wii U is by their launch titles, as if there is no room for visual improvement.   U's a modern, efficient machine, easily better than PS360, & we'll see more of that from 1st party and non-lazy devs (titles built from ground up)..  & since 720/1080p is still the standard res, Wii U will be just fine.Its HD nintendo, that alone will give it better legs than Wii.

I suppose there's a chance MS & Sony come out with something so powerful, that Wii U gets shut out of major 3rd party titles, as well as U not becoming as mainstream as Wii, forcing Nintendo to prematurely release another machine.  sounds very far fetched IMO, & remember: Nintendo chases no one, especially in the "arms race", its the other companies playing monkey-see-monkey-do.  Less  than 5% chance of happening.

I think the next wave of consoles is honestly going to be the end in a lot of ways of the traditional console.

I don't see a pressing need to go beyond what PS4/720 are likely to bring to the table which will start to blur the line between video games and CGI.

As for Nintendo, long term, I think their next hardware is going to merge their handheld and console into one product line. Wii U is the first step towards that, eventually the "console box" will be phased out entirely and the console itself will just be inside the tablet controller.