That discussion is more off topic I guess.

THat is what you call a virtual console.  BC means I am able to pull out a game I puchased and stick it into the new console to play. Surely NIntento is not going to give me all my WII U games in digital form for free lol.

Buy it now, theres a lot of great games to play rigth now.

Backwards compatible purely means it is able to run games from the previous generation. I don't recall there ever being a law set in place where by the original disc had to work? Either way though, to someone who doesn't own a Wii U, if the NX has the ability to play Wii U games, why on earth would they want to invest near enough a full brand new console's cost into a system that now has token support until it is succeeded?

I bought a Wii U day 1, don't regret it at all, if I was to pay the current price for the Wii U in the state it's currently in though, I'd be mighty pissed off in 12 months when it's obsolete.

Thank you. And to elaborate on your point, no, that's not "just virtual console." Virtual console is Nintendo's branding for its legacy support via emulation. It's not at all the same thing as digital backwards compatibility. The software being emulated on virtual console was never digital before being on virtual console. With digital backwards compatibility, all it is is the playability and purchase ability of, as you correctly stated, software purchased from the prior platform. The Wii U already has this with the Wii via Wiimode. The "platform" is Wiiware. At any time, you can go into wiimode, enter though wiiware marketplace, and buy any of those games. As long as you do a system transfer, you can transfer any of the games you purchased digitally on the Wii at no extra cost to you. That's backwards compatibility. That's with the NX will do.

The only difference will be that on the NX, the eshop will be seamlessly integrated into the NX marketplace and UI, which will likely still be the eshop and that, unlike with wiiware, 99% of all retail games released for the Wii U are purchasable on the eshop.

I feel a strong lack of a Nintendo console in my life and will most probably buy one next year. At this point though, I think there is no reason to buy a Wii U till Ninty clarifies the situation with NX. I want to know what NX is going to be like and whether it's BC. If it's BC - screw Wii U, I'm getting NX day 1 and I'll be a very happy gamer If it's not... I'm gonna have to think very, very hard about what to do. Whether hunt a cheap Wii U after a price cut, or think about NX. But I think I'd rather get a PS4 instead in such a case. Ehh... decisions.


TL;DR - with Nintendo by far the best option right now is to wait. No point in rushing with your purchase, when Ninty is pressed to make a move very soon.

Wonder when we will hear his decision!!

I think if you haven't made the decision yet you would be better served waiting. It's possible E3 will come and Nintendo will announce the NX will not be backwards-compatible. Then you take the plunge on that Wii U.

It's more likely they will say NX is coming out in 5 months, is $300 or less, and is (at least digitally) BC with Wii U games.

But it's your call of course. I bought my Wii U at the end of May and I regret nothing. Not sure how I'll handle the shift to NX yet.

I was marveling at how much I 100% agree with this and I just wanted to acknowledge that we did indeed work it out.

See? And there you were suspicious of my friend request.

Yes by Wii Mode litrally emulates a Wii and only because the hardware is practiclaly the same.  To do a Wii U mode on NX you would need way more power as PowerPC arcitecutre is past it's life, or you have PowerPC bits on the console. If they stick with PowerPC then they will fall further behind the competition.

Also Wii Mode let's me play my physical games.  What is the point of a Wii U only mode for digital games? For people like me that is a useless feature as I would need to buy the game again.  If they want to capture a new audience, may as well just do what Sony did on PS4 and release some "remasters" of the popular games and you may even get some repurchases too.