Yes they do, but the Wii U doesn't have the games right now. Mario 3D is not enough to get me to buy one, nor are the other games that came out thus far. Smash, Mario Kart and Zelda are the games that will get me to buy one. There are other factors too. PS4 and XBO do not have special software at launch, but a lot of people were ready for the jump, and to many, the Wii U didn't provide that.

Yup. every hand held I bought was for pokemon. I bought ps2's just for GTA

Times are changing though, with achievements, memberships and transactions. People feel more bond to a company were investments were made.

And nintendo games always get good meta scores, but they generally aren't very attractive in this day in age for 2 reasons.

1. Designs seem to play in the hands of children more than adluts. not to say everybody can't enjoy them but its the coating.

2. The graphics are stuck in last gem's limitations. fatigue has set on the capabilities on ps3 and 360 and the wii u isn't much more powerful than they are. new mario games don't really look much better than mario sunshine did years ago.

Well there you go. Games can sell consoles.

I like PSAS, but I love the SSB series. It's the definitive brawler in my opinion. I have probably put in 100+ hours into each game.

With a little bit of work i feel like PSAS could have been a much better game.

Games do, I would say most of the time one game does not.

The first priority should be getting hardware to sell hardware and software to sell software. Then you work on getting them to sell each other. Nintendo didn't do a great job on the first part so it'll take a fair amount of good games to sell the Wii U.

The rating of games by the gaming media is meaningless, even when so many publishers use it as a metric for game quality. This is why, for instance, New Super Mario Bros Wii (rated 87 on Metacritic) sold nearly 27 million, while Super Mario Galaxy (rated 97 on Metacritic) sold under 11 million. Games can have meta-ratings up over 95, and sell less than a million copies. Why? Because the gaming media have certain... preferences. They also place higher importance on certain things.

To most people, the way they determine whether to buy a system is (unconsciously) by comparing the current price to the perceived value in terms of games. If they see a $350 system with only four games they're interested in, all of which cost $50, and they don't consider any of those games to actually be worth more than $135 (just under a quarter of $550), then they will probably hold off on purchasing the system. What a killer app does is make the system seem worth the purchase immediately - a game that is seen to be worth the cost of the system on its own. The Wii U hasn't had such a killer app, yet (within the period for which we have sales data), although I'd assert that a few are coming - the first being Super Mario 3D World (which has been released in Japan and NA, but we don't have any sales data for it, yet).

Hardware cannot sell itself - without games, the hardware is really just a piece of metal and plastic. There have been certain exceptions, such as the PS2 also serving as a cheap DVD player, but this cannot be said of any of the systems of the current generation - it would be cheaper to buy a media centre PC than to buy a PS4 or XBO if you aren't interested in the gaming functionality.

Yes, I completely agree with you. We can't spend 300$ for just few exclusives now, so we'll wait when there are more in Wii U. Many bought 3DS also when its went to 180$ instead fo 250$ and they are fine with 180$ for exclusives and also handhelds are very good for childrens unlike Home Consoles.

I remember back when the Dreamcast came out and the PS2 was on the horizon. Some video game asked what would make someone choose Sega's console over Sony's. The Sega guy said something like, "Because we have the best games. The best games always win. That's the way it's always been." The Dreamcast had, in my biased opinion, a much stronger library than the PS2 until the end of 2001 and the Dreamcast had its clothes torn off, was forced to satisfy the PS2 orally, and then raped.

Best games don't always win. More often than not, they do. Then again, the best games are normally a product of industry dominance.

Everyone knows the multiplat franchises on all the nexgen consoles will be better visually on PS4bone. So having all the top franchises on the underpowered console does nothing for it. All it does is convince some of those who were already into Wii U to stick with it.

As for Nintendo exclusives, well they have a certain appeal, but the question is do those Nintendo exclusives have the sort of appeal that will bring the masses of "career" gamers to Nintendo and away from Sony/MS? By and large I would say no. For me there isn't a Nintendo franchise that excites me. I thought I might like LoZ but then I played several hours of OoT and my reaction was "meh, this is one of the highest scoring (review-wise) games of all time?"

Reviewers might love Nintendo games,and Nintendo fans might love them, but they are not big draw cards for other gamers. And I said all along that Wii's blue ocean would not become multi-generation console owners in any large number so I was not surprised that Wii U is mostly only selling to it's hard core roots.