Third-party games on WiiU - were they worth it?

[superchunk]

WiiU is an awesome console. Its mistake was a lack of vision and good advertising.

I bought 30 games for WiiU, not including Virtual Console (32). 13 (45%) of my WiiU games were from 3rd parties.

1) Assassin's Creed 3 and Black Flag - While I actually got bored of the AC formula while playing AC3, my boys had just got interested and loved both games.

2) Batman AC Armored Edition and Arkham Origins - Excellent continuation of the Batman line.

3) COD BO2 - I never really cared for COD, but my kids do love the multiplayer.

4) DuckTales Remastered - Great game re-made. So much fun. I guess this could be considered part of my VC library, but it wasn't a VC game technically.

5) Just Dance 2014 - These are fun family / party games. Game was basically for my daughter but it was a lot of fun.

6) Rayman Legends - This is how the game was intended to be played and it was well worth the price.

7) Skylanders Giants - My kids wanted it, so we got it. They loved it and still have a ton of those darn toys.

8) Trine 2 - Very good indie game.

9) Zen Pinball2 - Good and fun pinball experience.

10) The Wonderful 101 - crazy fun game. (thought this was 1st party.. I included because OP included)

11) The Conduit (sold) - fun game with good controls. But mediocre FPS overall.

12) ZombiU - Best launch game on the WiiU. One of my favorite WiiU games overall. I don't get the meh some people put on this game, it was a great survival horror game.

While this is definitely missing a few 3rd party games I would have purchased had they launched on WiiU, it is a list of games that were well worth the ownership from day one.

What I find funny is that people like to push the value of WiiU, yet PS4/XBO had zero unique value for their first two years. ALL of their games were also launched on PS360 with minimal differences during this time and neither had big exclusives or first party to speak of. Yet, WiiU is the one people mock. I just don't get it. I did eventually buy an XBO so myself and kids could play bigger 3rd party games (notice I'm not mentioning 1st party) with friends and family. Though I personally would have rather purchased a PS4 for Uncharted... only non-Nintendo 1st party worth mentioning IMO. But friends/family all owned XBO.

Ah well, in the end my professional life has made my gaming life nearly extinct. At this point I only play select games every few weeks while my kids enjoy the systems more fully. With not purchasing StarFox and getting Zelda on NX, we don't touch WiiU much as all newer purchases have been on XBO. But it is end of life with no support from any developer at this point so that is expected.

In the end, to answer the question, yes 3rd party on WiiU was more than worth it. The WiiU was more than worth it. Gaming and entertainment was awesome and fun. All of the above games worked well and most had very unique benefits of owning the WiiU version over other consoles where the only difference was typically visuals. (off-screen play or specific uses of gamepad 2nd screen) But the rule for Nintendo always applies. Buy the console for 1st party games. 3rd party is a welcomed inclusion, but not the expectation.