I may write a detailed review later. I probably won't.

3DS: Lots of fun, great games, a little clunky. Poor battery life. Love it.

PS Vita: Really capable, lots of funtionality, good games. Love it.

Wii U: Great controller. Best web browser on a console. Miiverse is great. Love it.

PS4: Great controller. Lots of power. Some decent free games. Love it.

Xbox One: Kinect is great. Great controller. Feels really well designed. Love it.


Pretty much, if I buy it, I love it.

There were probably too many hardware differences to get GameCube games running natively from the disc. A console within a console within a console is too much consolception for a console's brain to handle. I wouldn't really call PS Now backwards compatibility though. I would call it more of a Playstation Virtual Console. Perhaps backwards compatibility and virtual consoles need a separate section in reviews.

Edit: GameCubes are cheap as hell anyways. Everyone should have one so they can admire the best designed console ever made!

Umm... a system without games is bookend. So I'm going to ignore that instruction.

Wii U is my most recent purchase.
Pros: Lots of control options, touchscreen is great for menu navigation, input, etc, as well as secondary features such as YouTube. Some outstanding exclusives like WWHD and SM3DW. Good price and NO online fees. Strong 3rd party support to date. Solid next-gen lighting, effects and resolution, particularly on the two above mentioned titles. Backward compatibility
Cons: Only mild visual upgrade from my XB360. Missing some 3rd party content currently, going to be (likely) missing much more in the future. Weak virtual console support compared to Wii. Small user base for online matches. Visually less impressive than other current options. Lacking bold new IP's.

Score: 7/10. This is likely to drop along with third party content in the future.

3DS: Good paper weight, and it's quite durable.

Score as a paper weight: 7.5/10

Wii U: Too big to use as a paper weight, the one thing that is cool about it is the browser though, it works pretty good.

Score as a paper weight: 1/10

Score as an alternate browser: 7/10

Im gonna review them in the order they were purchased

PS4:

UI: Very streamline and fast. The List can get cluttered tho kinda quickly if you install alot of games i think it needs a folder system. 9/10

Hardware: Can't knock it here, it delivers with gfx and also load times. 9/10

Features: this is probably its weakest cat, i do like the instant swap between applications and if you pay for music unlimited it aleviates the need for local music disks also share feature in nice 7/10

Controller: Great controller, fits hands snuggly, love the triggers and bumpers 10/10

Formfactor: Slim Sleek design, however the placement of the USB slots are inconvinent 9/10

Value: For $400 there is a ton a value with this machine your getting the strongest console for a fair price throw in the "free" PS+ downloads and you can see why its the most popular choice 10/10

Overall: really great system one of Sonys finest 9/10

Wii U:

UI:  I think this is the systems weak point, it feels really clutered and jumbled the Miis are neat tho 7/10

Hardware: the system has the power needed for Mario type games but it will struggle with multiplats 7/10

Features: Strong feature set, strongest being remote play out of the box,  backwards comp and free online. I have used the gamepad screen mode many time when my wife or daughter need to use the tv. 8/10

Controller: The gamepad is surprisingly comfortable and having the available touch screen is a plus. Longer play sessions can render your wrists tired 8/10

Formfactor: Nice Sleek and compact. i have the black model so it blends in well with the entertainment stand, however i wish the IR bar was built into the system. 9/10

Value: Cant complain here great system for a fair price with out of the box remote play and a free game (Zelda) 9/10

Overall: Had a lot of fun with 1st party games but other than that the system does not get used very often 8/10

XBOX One:

UI: Very clutered and complicated. the mix of voice and controller imput commands is frustrating 6/10

Hardware: Havent used the system for multiplats but the elclusives look alright imo. Its quiet and seems too have alot of ventelation 8/10

Features: Snap feature is neat, pretty standard feature set tho (i dont have cable)  8/10

Controller: Very comfortable controller great face buttons and thumb sticks. Triggers are a little too far back and it reqires AA bats 9/10

Formfactor: Its Huge and still cant get the supply in the box. feels kinda flimsy and extreamly plain 6/10

Value: I got the TF bundle for 450 no tax so the value for me was there, not sure i would feel the same way if i had to buy it at 500 with no game. Also XBL dosent have the same value as PSN when it comes to games. The out of the box motion gaming with kinect was nice tho. 7/10

Overall: Solid sytem, excited for MS exclusives and inovation with motion gaming in the future. 7/10

WiiU

Asthetics: 8.5
Nothing special to it's look, but nothing ugly either. A bigger Wii is what most would say. I think it looks solid when standing upright.

Price: 8.5
The WiiU is the cheapest console of the 8th gen. For $100 less there is still plenty to enjoy over the competition.

Power: 7.0/10
The WiiU is not much more powerful than the 7th gen console. This may be a problem for some people. Don't get me wrong, games are what define a platform and with that said, Nintendo has done a solid job thus far. All said, the WiiU can be defined as a solid 720p machine. This may pose a problem to developers as we have seen third party support being pulled. However, it's good to know that the WiiU has modern shaders and an equivalent API to DX11.x/OpenGL4.x. Reportedly, there isn't much to the GPU (shaders:tmu:rop), but it does feature at least one custom feature and that is the eDRAM to make up for lacking DDR3 RAM. I'd guess that it's both the size and bandwidth of the main RAM that is pushing long term third parties away.

Features: 7.5/10
I know it's a gaming console, but Nintendo seems to have delivered a console with mixed messages for being part of the media room. The gamepad can actually serve as a TV remote, and control other things in the media room, but that's about it. If you do a lot of watching on video services, then you won't complain much. But for me, I would have wished it had a bu-ray drive as I would have made the WiiU as the main console for all watching.
Other feature, which is a big luxury for most of us is the backwards compatibility; you can play all Wii software granted you keep your Wiimotes around. The downside is that Wii software is not upscaled.
Another thing to mention is the storage memory. The WiiU only packs 32gb of flash; that is much less than the competition which features higher capacity mechanical drives.

User Interface: 7.0/10
Very simple and a bit restricted felt. The squares will execute what you want to do, but the menus seem clunky to navigate. As far as loading, it has been fixed with updates. My most major complaint is that my WiiU runs out of battery and can't be used because the gamepad ran out of battery.

Online: 7.0/10
Doesn't feel as open or fast like the competition. But when it comes to playing games online, you should be able to do so. In other words, it works but that's it. The store can only be navigated by the gamepad which is annoying.

Controller: 8.0/10
The gamepad feels and looks great. It works for some of the titles but not to well for other, in my case. For example, Arkham City felt uncomfortable for me. Most of the time I find myself reaching for the Pro controller (supported by most games), which is great in feel and look. Sometimes it felt unresponsive controller in Kirby's Adventure, which is a VC game. I'm not sure if it's the same case with other VC games.

Overall (average): 7.6

Too lazy to do PS4: 8.5

I find it funny and amusing that a minority of people on this forum finds it impossible to review a piece of hardware. :)

Like it would be impossible to test and review a TV, DVD, Smartphone etc. Of course it's possible, just test it. The controller, is it good or bad in design, comfort, durability, quality? There's endless stuff you can test, just choose what matters most for you, except for the games.

And the only reason why I intentionally left out "games" for the review is that we would not get reviews like:

"It has MK8/Titanfall/inFamous, so I give it 10/10."

Hopefully the "angry" minority that complains about games being left out are those kind of reviewers, then I'm more than happy.

Wii U:

Hardware: 6.5/10

Hardware is pretty lacking especially in comparison to the Wii U's competition. It's also missing some basic features for a console such as an Ethernet port and an internal hard drive. However the console has a small footprint, quiet and good quality material. You also don't have to install games. It does support external hard drives.

UI: 4/10

Slow and clunky are the words I would describe it as. Even with recent updates it can be frustrating to use, overall the UI lacks a lot of polish.

Controller: 9.5/10

A big large but good build quality and the buttons feel good to use. You can do a lot of things on the tablet such as browse the web, play some Wii U or stream Wii games, or just use it as a regular controller. Only downside is the battery life, which is very short. The Wii U also has great support for Wii controllers such as the Wii mote and Classic Controller.

Online: 7/10

Well it's nothing to write home about but it works well enough, and it's free. MiiVerse is also a nice touch and always easy access into the community.

Features: 6.5/10

Other than gaming features there really isn't much the Wii U does outside the web browser and Netflix; it does not have much on the side of multimedia features. However it does feature great and free backwards compatibility with all Wii titles. The Virtual Console is also a great feature and support is relatively active.

Price: 6/10

I still think the asking price of the console is a bit too high for what you are getting. But with a bundled game $250, is definitely the sweet spot.

Overall: 6.5/10

By any means the Wii U is not a bad console, but it's not great either. If you look past all that and just want a gaming console or a console to play Nintendo games then go for it. Especially if you missed out on the Wii, then the Wii U should definitely be considered, you're getting a next gen console along with a Wii in one package. However if you're looking for a home entertainment device, you may be disappointed.


Xbox One:

Hardware: 8/10

Just about what I expected from the leap from 7th to 8th gen in terms of technical power, although it is weaker than the PS4 it still shows off great graphics. Kinect 2 is also a huge improvement on the original Kinect and there is a lot of untapped potential still in it. However the console and all the extra parts such as the Kinect 2 and power brick take up a lot of room. Installing games is definitely a drag but some games allow you to play while installing and you can use other apps while waiting. The Xbox One also supports external hard drives but not internal.

UI: 6.5/10

It's simplistic but it works for the most part. The Windows 8 design is stylish and you even have some limited customization. However it's no where near as smooth as the Xbox 360's UI and it can be at times slow.

Controller: 10/10

Damn near perfect controller. The buttons and analog sticks feel great and the dpad is a massive improvement over the 360's. The bumpers are probably the major fault of the controller, they feel a bit too stiff and cannot be pressed from the top. Otherwise it's excellent.

Online: 8/10

It's Xbox Live, not much needs to be said what hasn't been said before. It works and it works well. However the asking price for the service is a bit much considering that other services offer more with less and Xbox Live is required to use some apps.

Features: 10/10

Another place the Xbox One excels at is the features. It features suburb multimedia feature and great support for apps. Xbox Snap is also really cool, ever wanted to play Dead Rising while watching someone play Forza on Twitch (the best console version of the app) at the same time? Well if that's your thing, now you can! You can hook stuff up to it too, which is nice.

Price: 6/10

On one side you get a lot of things with a Xbox One however it's just a little bit too much for an asking price, especially considering on how much cheaper the competition is. However recent bundles and price cuts are addressing this problem.

Overall: 8.5/10

Overall the Xbox One is a great console for games and multimedia. It is a bit pricey and it has some issues to iron out but otherwise it's smooth sailing.

Wii U: 4 "interesting" ideas out of 10 ideas put to good use.
3DS: 8 tri-colored cake looking designs out of 10. (3DS XL: 9 much better everything out of 10.)

You can obviously tell which one is heavily leaning on the crutch of good games.

Wii U

Hardware: 6/10 - It will make great Nintendo games, which is all that I need it for.... It's hardware will make it miss out on most of the major cross platforms though.

Controller: 8/10 - It's comfortable, and I honestly like the uses that the tablet screen offers. This is really one of my favorite things about the U. 

UI: 4/10 - I personally don't like the UI, it very unorganized and quite frustrating.  

Online: 4/10 - Yeah it has a decent console browser... Big deal. Nintendo is still years behind the competition. Miiverse is an okay idea...

Price: 7/10 - I think it's at a fair price point... especially with bundles

Features 7/10 - You can play netflix on it... Backwards compatibility is huge considering it's hardware will hinder it from building a large library of new games.

Overall - 6/10 - It's a decent console that will serve it's purpose of playing Nintendo games. Should I really expect it to do anything else?