Here is the most legitimate criticism. Nintendo takes the smallest of baby steps with 3DS, such that Wii U's online might at least resemble the second generation of PSN (say what that network looked like in 07-08), but that is the most optimistic appraisal.

Though this assumes that Nintendo is going to have an integrated network at all, and not opt to emulate PS2 online as some interpretations of their stance on the matter suggest

RTS - M&K
FPS - The sticks on the WiiU are similar to the PSPs, can't beat analogs or Mouse. Infact, this applies to any game that uses them.

It won't dominate anything IMO, Some devs may do some cool stuff or move the hud to the screen (although that could cause more problems than it's fixing) but that's about it.

Well you mentioned MP and RTS games on PC use online when it comes to MP right? I mean you don’t share the same PC.

What’s the difference in pressing a button and touching something on screen and a right mouse click over an army or object in the game and choosing from a list things to do?

Touching and holding? Why is that different than pressing the mouse button and dragging it over anything?

Touch and mouse are basically the same thing the only difference is that the pen doesn’t have buttons so you use the other hand to press and in the mouses case right button, a list comes and you chose what you want.

You mentioned StarCraft 2.  Have you actually played it?  It would be unbearably slow with a tablet.  A touchscreen is a poor replacement for a mouse, and that doesn't even get into the keyboard aspect.  This reminds me of when Day9 did a Funday Monday where the requirement was no keyboard, one person actually used a wacom tablet.  Made for a funny video, but it is a pretty awful control solution.

Also, do you expect the entire game to be played on the controller screen or will you just have interface there?

These kind of threads always seem to be working under the assumption that the keyboard isn't an important control device in PC gaming.  Sure you could play something slow and not really competitive like Anno or Sim City with just a mouse, but playing a game like starcraft without touching the keyboard is crazy.  Also a mouse has a lot of inputs in addition to pointing.  My mouse has 10 (granted 3 of them aren't really used for gaming).  That alone comes close to controllers, then add in the 109 keys on my keyboard, of course with alt/ctrl/etc you've got hundreds more.

As for MMOs, there are a lot of reasons besides controls that they are more popular on PCs.  Programs like Vent/Mumble, Fraps, interface mods, easy to tab out and check something online, keyboard is pretty integral for communication (you don't want to walk into Ironforge and hear 500 people talking at once on your headset).  Console players tend to move onto the next big thing rather than playing a game for years and years, and there are hardware generations.  This kind of kills the chances of MMOs.  Eve online came out over eight and a half years ago, yet it hit a new peak in users this year.  How many games from 2003 are still played by anyone much less growing on consoles?

Actually an MMO specifically designed for consoles probably wouldn't be that tough (in terms of controls), but playing WoW (or any PC MMO) on a tablet sounds pretty bad.  There are often too many things you have to do in tandem.  What if you're a healer.  On a tablet I guess you would have to choose the person who needs a heal and then choose the spell.  Of course this whole time you would be staring at the tablet and not looking at what is happening in the game.  Compare that to a mouse where I can bind different spells to different buttons and click to heal, all while having every bit of information on the main screen.  Playing on a tablet would mean both you and the person you are trying to heal are more likely to die.  You'd really need to have the whole game playing on the tablet screen for it to even be feasible (same for RTS).  Keep in mind I am looking at this from a raiding/PVP perspective.  Of course you could easily grind with any control interface.

Will the WiiU be better than controllers for RTS and MMO's?  Of course, but that is because controllers are garbage for those genres.  I have a feeling you were saying the same thing about the wii remote.

I remember the PS3 was pretty much a sure thing, the 360 was supposed to gain on it some and make it closer than 6th Gen, and the Wii was supposed to be Nintendo's last console. Out of the 3 assumptions people made about the consoles only the 360 was close, and I think it did even better than most expected.

Now one doupted the PS3 until after launch, then people started to realize the price point was going to cause them to fall behind this gen.

This is what i said regarding MP "Considering RTS games have a big focus on multiplayer and competition, the controls needs to be able to allow for that" The controls needs to be done in such a way that it allows for competitive MP. I said nothing about the online infrastrusture...

I was talking mostly about competitive MP in RTS....building structures is easy on both touch and mouse control schemes i didnt say that it wasnt, these functions are usually dealt with by keyboard shortcuts in competitive mp anyways. I was focusing on the core movement and selection of units, as well as micro managing units, these issues become much more prominent in MP. Have u played a competitive MP RTS game? IIf you have then you know its completely different from a basic RTS AI level.

And like i said the difference between a mouse and touch, is that for touch u need a extra gesture to change the functionality of a single touch, it doesnt matter what this gesture is or how easy it is, its something extra, and adds more time for standard movement and controlling of units. The mouse has these buttons always available, so here lies the biggest difference and the most important one imo with regards to competitive mp. Not to mention that scrolling across the map also needs to be done.

Im not saying this cant be done, but it hasnt been done to that level as of yet.

i must be going soft with the holiday season approaching.... 

anyhoo.. i'm not terribly familur, what is the state of the 3DS's online?  there is at least a persistent online ID now to replace friend codes and the ability to see when your friends are online, no?   of all the features xbl/psn has that is the most important one to me cause it makes it sooo much easier to meet up with friends for co-op or whatever without being a pest by calling people when they don't want to play.

Maybe we are looking at it completely different but the way I see is that you have a map were you can easily select units or just a few by drawing a circle around the ones you want to move and just direct them or tell them to guard or whatever ability they have and can use.

The only game I played MP in was RA2 but that was many years ago so things have most likely changed from then till now or maybe they haven’t I don’t know.

That’s nothing that the screen can’t handle either for moving around or selecting troops and telling them what to do. I don’t see how things will take longer using touch instead of a mouse but then I haven’t played games both ways so I can’t say for sure.

You might have played a game using touch developed in a wrong way or maybe you played it on a phone or something.

Scrolling is no problem either. Just like you put your courser at the end of the PC screen to move around quickly it can be done on the screen as well.

It might never be as perfect as PC gamers want it to be but it will be close.

Hey maybe you right....

To me the fact that it probably wont be as perfect might limit it when playing games like starcraft 2, dota, LOL, and HoN etc.

All depends how its implemented, u never know they might do it in such a way that is better than mouse/ keyboard

3DS has:

1 friend code that applies across all games (e.g. what Wii should have been, given the Connect24 friend list)

Notifications for when your friends log on (though not which friend. Just this blinking orange light on the hardware, but you can go to the Home menu from that point and take a look at your friends list)

The ability to see what your friends are playing

The ability to, with an online enabled game, jump straight into a friend's game

The only thing that's missing as far as friend functionality goes is some sort of private messaging system (which, oddly, was present on Wii but is now absent). So as far as friend functionality, Nintendo is relatively close to par. Where improvement is needed is in the online shopping experience, as well as demos (though demos for 3DS retail games are forthcoming)

They're still moving slowly, but the picture is at least optimistic on that front