Aside from indies, they weren't really worth it. Zombie U was a game with potential and I'm sure Rayman Legends was good, but most of the rest of 3rd parties games were pretty terrible. I have maybe 3 3rd party games on my shelf? They've been kinda weak so far... : T

WiiU is an awesome console. Its mistake was a lack of vision and good advertising.

I bought 30 games for WiiU, not including Virtual Console (32). 13 (45%) of my WiiU games were from 3rd parties.

1) Assassin's Creed 3 and Black Flag - While I actually got bored of the AC formula while playing AC3, my boys had just got interested and loved both games.

2) Batman AC Armored Edition and Arkham Origins - Excellent continuation of the Batman line.

3) COD BO2 - I never really cared for COD, but my kids do love the multiplayer.

4) DuckTales Remastered - Great game re-made. So much fun. I guess this could be considered part of my VC library, but it wasn't a VC game technically.

5) Just Dance 2014 - These are fun family / party games. Game was basically for my daughter but it was a lot of fun.

6) Rayman Legends - This is how the game was intended to be played and it was well worth the price.

7) Skylanders Giants - My kids wanted it, so we got it. They loved it and still have a ton of those darn toys.

8) Trine 2 - Very good indie game.

9) Zen Pinball2 - Good and fun pinball experience.

10) The Wonderful 101 - crazy fun game. (thought this was 1st party.. I included because OP included)

11) The Conduit (sold) - fun game with good controls. But mediocre FPS overall.

12) ZombiU - Best launch game on the WiiU. One of my favorite WiiU games overall. I don't get the meh some people put on this game, it was a great survival horror game.

While this is definitely missing a few 3rd party games I would have purchased had they launched on WiiU, it is a list of games that were well worth the ownership from day one.

What I find funny is that people like to push the value of WiiU, yet PS4/XBO had zero unique value for their first two years. ALL of their games were also launched on PS360 with minimal differences during this time and neither had big exclusives or first party to speak of. Yet, WiiU is the one people mock. I just don't get it. I did eventually buy an XBO so myself and kids could play bigger 3rd party games (notice I'm not mentioning 1st party) with friends and family. Though I personally would have rather purchased a PS4 for Uncharted... only non-Nintendo 1st party worth mentioning IMO. But friends/family all owned XBO.

Ah well, in the end my professional life has made my gaming life nearly extinct. At this point I only play select games every few weeks while my kids enjoy the systems more fully. With not purchasing StarFox and getting Zelda on NX, we don't touch WiiU much as all newer purchases have been on XBO. But it is end of life with no support from any developer at this point so that is expected.

In the end, to answer the question, yes 3rd party on WiiU was more than worth it. The WiiU was more than worth it. Gaming and entertainment was awesome and fun. All of the above games worked well and most had very unique benefits of owning the WiiU version over other consoles where the only difference was typically visuals. (off-screen play or specific uses of gamepad 2nd screen) But the rule for Nintendo always applies. Buy the console for 1st party games. 3rd party is a welcomed inclusion, but not the expectation.

I would never ever recommend buying a Nintendo system solely for third partys alone, but it's definitely true that the Wii U has quite a few good ones. Seldom mentioned is Sonic Lost World which by no means is amazing but still a decent game I overall enjoyed.

Guess we have different definitions for first party, as none of games he listed are developed by Nintendo or is using their IP (besides TMS but that hardly counts). I don't think because Nintendo publishes a game that makes it a Nintendo game.

Difference of opinion on what good / big first party is. Was it a hardware bundle? Did it push people to buy PS4? Compare exclusives for WiiU and PS4/XBO first year. Huge difference in quantity and IMO quality.

I enjoyed a lot of 3rd party Wii U stuff, I have over 60 games so I tried to do my bit to support the software. Most notable for me were...
Need For Speed- Superior version over all the others
Deus Ex- As above
Splinter Cell Blacklist- I find it to be a better game than MGSV
Arkham Origins- My favourite game of the series, I prefer it to both City and Knight.
Mass Effect 3- Somebody here mentioned this is a poor port, It runs fine. Check Digital Foundry to see it easily outperforms the PS3 version and is slightly better than the 360 version (no screen tear and not sub HD).
Tekken Tag 2- Runs well and has additional Nintendo content
Injustice- Runs well, decent fighter.
Black ops 2- 2 player without God awful split screen, such a nice feature for players to have your own screen.

Ultimately, I ended up getting a PS4 so I can play the latest 3rd party games, but what I have on Wii U has been worth it. Plenty of life in my Wii U yet for me.

EDIT: nevermind, forget what I said.

Depends on the game itself, like Smash Bros. 4 I consider a Nintendo game since even though it was made by Namco it still has familiar Nintendo gameplay, whereas Hyrule Warriors plays like Dynasty Warriors and not like any Nintendo game, so I count that as strictly third party.

Very few games are worth it, including the obvious choices like the Bayo titles, Rayman Legends, ZombiU, The Wonderful 101, Human Revolution (perhaps the best multiplatform game present on the console), Need For Speed MW, and heck, maybe even games like Splinter Cell Blacklist, ACIV Black Flag and Arkham City are there fighting at the top, but these releases were ruined by terrible frame rates (and unending loading times in the case of Blacklist), sadly.

Overall, though, the third party selection on Wii U was mediocre at best.

Tried editing my comment because the Shin'en info on wikipedia was wrong. Guess I should have looked at their webpage first.

Just because a game is owned by a company doesn't make it a first-party game. No one goes around calling Infinite Undiscovery a Microsoft first-party game because it was not developed by them, despite owning the trademark and the copyrights to it (aside from a few shared copyrights with Square-Enix due to the later being the publisher).

Heck, I'm not trying to argue they're Nintendo games. I'm saying they're third-party games. There's a made-up term called "second-party" that is used to designed games made by third-party entities but owned by one of the main developer companies, despite not having anything to do at all with the development of it. In either case, the game is still third-party made, and thus it is still a third-party game, just owned by someone else.

Isn't this a Wii game, and not a Wii U game?