RolStoppable said:
Luigi's Mansion, Wave Race: Blue Storm, Pikmin, Super Smash Bros. Melee vs. NSMBU, Nintendo Land and Pikmin 3. What a huge difference. Here's how the GC launch was really: The system launched in May 2002 in Europe, it launched in September 2001 in Japan. Eight months had already passed. Luigi, Wave Race and SSBM hit in May, Pikmin in June. Despite the delayed launch for Europe, the system entered a software drought right away (and since Europe got the worthwile games in a bulk for its launch month, this meant that Japan and America had already been going through their own droughts). The year ended with Resident Evil, Eternal Darkness and Super Mario Sunshine for the GC, the Wii U will see The Wonderful 101, a The Wind Waker HD remake, Sonic Lost World, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Super Mario 3D World, Wii Party U, Wii Fit U and Mario & Sonic. What this means is that the 14 months run of the Wii U will have outdone the 16 months run of the GC (The Wind Waker was released in Japan in December 2002, Metroid Prime in America in November 2002; decide for yourself how much weight you want to give to single region releases). This is without factoring in the Wii U's eShop which softens the blow of every drought. The GC featured constant killer software, but only if we wipe all of its droughts from our memory. |
I don't know what to say to you.
Within (roughly) its first year I was playing games that were competing (and beating!) Xbox and PS2's biggest releases. Spin all the convoluted launch dates and technicalities the way you like, but I was playing
Metroid: Prime, REmake, Starforx: Adventures (which I liked btw), Wave Race, Rogue Squadron, Baldur's Gate, Burnout, Timesplitters 2, Mario Sunshine, Smash Bros, Fifa, Tony Hawk, Eternal Darkness, Super Monkey Ball, Luigi's Mansion... These are the games I remember playing early on. Now, technically you could probably argue that some of them didn't come in the first year - I don't know. This is just from memory.
That is one stellar collection right there. 1st Party masterpieces, strong 3rd party support and some exclusive 3rd party games also. When I walk into a game shop right now and look at the Wii U games available then I cannot fathom how you would even try to argue against the point.
And these games were technically (graphically) as good (and often better) as anything the opposition had. I miss those days.
EDIT: Not to mention games I didn't play until much later because I just couldn't afford more games. Pikmin comes to mind.
