While they have announced some actual first-party games, Nintendo hasn't announced "a bunch" of them. They've announced Wii Fit U, NSMB U, Pikmin 3, Game & Wario, and Nintendo Land. Other than this, they have technically announced Smash Bros, and implicitly announced Zelda as eventually coming. Five first-party titles is not really "a bunch". The rest of the Nintendo-published titles are third-party titles merely being published by Nintendo. It's more in the launch window than the Wii had, but only two of the five are really classified as "traditional games" that the Wii had trouble getting (the other three being Wii Fit U, Game & Wario, and Nintendo Land).

That said, they're launching with NSMB U. They're launching with 2D Mario. No matter how you angle it, they're bringing a huge title at launch, and thus there is no "buffer period". They have made sure that launch will see a major system seller.

And to bring in the third party support, they've clearly got other things going - publishing deals, support for unique Upad uses, etc. They've been reaching out to the third parties to strengthen relationships - Tecmo Koei, Ubisoft, Namco Bandai, and Sega have all clearly been interacting much more closely with Nintendo recently. Warner Bros too, by the sounds of it (given that 5th Cell spoke of seeing the Wii U particularly early, and the rest of Warner Bros Interactive soon afterwards, and that Nintendo is publishing Lego City Undercover). And I get the sense that some developers have also been approached - Platinum Games, Gearbox Software, Traveller's Tales, Team Ninja, etc.

Nintendo learned with the 3DS and the later part of the Wii lifecycle that "hard to compete with first-party titles" was just one of the lines being given to justify to investors, just like "hardcore games don't sell" and "the game just won't work on the Wii". With the Wii U, they've taken a different tack.

While I think the Wii U may be less powerful than many people (including myself) would have hoped for, it does appear to be more powerful than the current HD consoles, and I'm doubtful that any of the developers who worked on the Wii or most of the developers who worked on the HD consoles could afford to produce games that took advantage of a platform that is dramatically more powerful.

Essentially, I expect that (roughly) 40% of developers can only afford to continue producing games at (roughly) the same level of detail they currently are, 40% of developers can afford to produce games with moderate enhancements, and 20% of developers could really afford to push games a generation ahead of where they are. Being that a large portion of game developers were already a "generation behind" this means that (probably) 10% to 15% of developers could really afford to push hardware which was much more powerful than the Wii U.

careful what you say. mods are ban tirgger happy atm. you better have references to back up your statement as opinions are not welcome.

What do you mean by this statement? You surely can not be saying that Nintendo's games are not the killer apps that sell their own systems.

A system can only have "1" killer app just as a painter can only have 1 msterpiece. A killer app refers to the game that pushes the system to is maximum potential or as close as it can be gotten to.

Nintendo has never maxed out one of there system, ever.  All killer apps on Nintendo systems have been made by third parties.

How much something sells does not determine if it is a killer app.

That is both a narrow and strange definition of killer app. Regardless of definition; either Mario, Smash Bros. or Mario Kart always prove to be the greatest system seller on Nintendo's consoles.

lol....Are you serious? Anyone who as read up on the Wii U knows that it will be slightly more powerful than current gen consoles. That being said, when the next Playstation and Xbox come out they will be far ahead, much like this where the Wii stood this gen to the PS3 and 360.

Really? The next PS and Xbox will be "far ahead"? Do you have a source for this claim?

Oh, right - it's an assumption based on personal opinion. Carry on.

the key point that you made being anyone. not everyone has read up on the wiiu. so to them your statement may be seen as trolling since you presented no evidence to back up your claims.

However, I am one of those people who has read up on the wiiu. I agree with you that the wiiu will be behind. only thing that will be interesting is how much more powerful the other two will be and at what price point they plan to launch. If they launch at same price as WiiU then the gap will be small. If higher price then it might be big. One thing I hope for is microsoft to make an xbox with a drive that opens properly haha. the two that I have get stuck sometimes because the cover is slightly slanted.

The graphical gulf between Wii U and PS4/Next X will be closer to the graphical gulf of the Dreamcast to the rest of the 6th generation.   It will not repeat the Wii to PS3/X360 graphical gulf.