By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Nintendo Discussion - What people dislike about Wii U hardware?

Leynos on 08 July 2021
Mandalore76 said:
JRPGfan said:

Gamepad alone probably doubled the price of the thing.
If it had launched with a normal controller, they could have halved the price of the unit.
Resulting in much more sales overall (imo).

The gamepad was bulky, heavy, and not optimal to use (most people resorting to buying a pro controller for it, to game with).
And in the games were they really tried to take advantage of the gamepad, the games suffered for it.
(starfox comes to mind)

Anyways, bad sales caused Nintendo to pull developement early on, so there was game droughts, that just made the issue worse.
So it wasnt all just hardware's fault. It was a spiral of alot of things going wrong.

People that say it was just "marketing" are wrong however.
Nintendo brand is so big (so many loyal fans), that even with horrible marketing, if they put out a good device it will sell reguardless.
For people to not buy the Wii U, it was apparent that it wasnt a great product.

It came out, near the end of the gen, and was basically just upto par with the others on the market (that had been out for along time, and was soon moveing on). Soon PS4/XB1 launched, and that took alot of the hype away. At that point it was clear, the Wii U was old gen tech.

Hence another reason I think Nintendo purposefully launches their consoles, mid-gen, away from its competitors.
And why it changed its hardware to be differnt, so it would avoid direct compairsions.

Still, the poor marketing has to take some of the blame.  The Nintendo Switch is a spectacular device, but Nintendo made sure that everyone knew about it by paying for the company's first ever Super Bowl ad.  They didn't just put it out and hope people would notice.  With the Wii U, the marketing and messaging was so bad, that they actually had to put out an ad trying to explain what the thing was... a year after the console had been released!  I don't remember seeing any aggressive TV advertising for the Wii U until it had already been labeled a flop.  The Wii U needed a viral marketing campaign like the "Wii would like to Play" ads. 

And it would have been so simple too.  Just do the same ad where the Nintendo execs show up at your door and say "Wii would like U to play".  Then show off some clips a player using the Gamepad while other players used the screen.  Highlight experiences unique to the Gamepad like the Mario Hide & Seek mini game in Nintendo Land as a draw for kids, and then designing your own hot routes at the line of scrimmage in Madden 13 as a lure for the more hardcore gamers.  And state it very clearly that the system is the successor to the Wii.  It could have been done well and done right, but it wasn't.  

Wii would like to play with U

Wii will Wii Will Rock U (1 minute games showcase as the song plays with matching Wii and U text on screen)

Wii play our way. U play yours. (as it shows the tablet and Wii remotes in multiplayer games reel)

Seriously it's like Nintendo didn't even try. There are so many ways to have word play in marketing for it.

Last edited by Leynos - on 08 July 2021

Bite my shiny metal cockpit!

Around the Network
curl-6 on 08 July 2021
Illusion said:

curl-6 said:

I don't think there's anything lazy or creatively inadequate about games like Splatoon 2 or Mario Maker 2 or Smash Ultimate, they're just iterative sequels the likes of which have been a part of the industry forever, including from Nintendo. On the Wii, Mario Kart was an iterative sequel, as was Smash Bros Brawl, Kirby's Return to Dreamland, Mario Galaxy 2, etc.

We can certainly have a difference of opinion here.  The Wii wasn't Nintendo at their creatively strongest either, but I have to say that things have gotten worse during the Switch.  The Switch and the Wii are the only two Nintendo home consoles that I have not owned since I started gaming.  I owned a Wii U and with Smash, Splatoon, BotW, Mario Maker, Mario Kart 8 I honestly see no reason to upgrade for the sequels that are on the Switch (let's exclude the fact that the servers and support for the Wii U is gone which essentially forces you to upgrade).  Apart from a new console and some more technical and graphical polish, what is really present in these sequels that I cannot have experienced on the Wii U?  The content differences that are there don't seem to add up to more than what you would expect to find in a few good DLC packs in my view.  Nintendo games already looked great at 720p and with the more animated style of Nintendo games, I do not see 1080p as a big selling feature. 

I will admit that Mario Odyssey is quite tempting and is the one title that I almost want to buy the Switch for, but Splatoon 2, Smash Ultimate, Mario Kart 8 Delux have very little appeal to me because I cannot see anything that is new or really changes how these games are played.  It feels more like a renewal license to continue having support for the games I purchased on the Wii U.  Switch releases like NSMBU and SM3DW only reinforce my opinion here.  Buying Smash Ultimate just to play as Banjo or the inklings just isn't worth the upgrade in my view.  Honestly, the Cloud Strife DLC that the Wii U got was a bigger deal to me than playing as those characters.  The one thing that might get me to eventually buy a Switch would be a new Metroid Prime that really rocks, but that still seems like a long ways away.

This is just my opinion and I am fine if it is an unpopular one.  Don't get me wrong, I am still a huge Nintendo fan and I want the Switch to be successful. That being said, I feel that my future in gaming lies in the past which is why I am designing an adapter that allows me to insert a raspberry Pi into and N64 cartridge slot and use my 64 as a unified platform for retro gaming for games on consoles for the PS1 and earlier.  Buying these games used are getting outrageous, but at least with this you own something physical that does not require constant ongoing support and you can legitimately play your personal backups.  My Wii U now is basically unplayable without support or online and it has some intermittent stability issues booting up that makes me nervous to even turn it on so I can't even play all the Retro eShop and Wii Virtual Console games that I bought on it.

I can't comment on Smash as I'm not into that, but Splatoon 2 for example has a new campaign bigger than the first game's, all the new multiplayer content you'd expect from a sequel, and the new Salmon Run mode.

As a Switch owner who also had a Wii U and isn't fond of the amount of ports from it, the games that made Switch worthwhile for me are games like Mario Odyssey, Monster Hunter Rise, Xenoblade 2, Luigi's Mansion 3, etc, plus ports of games like Ori 1 & 2, Doom 2016/Eternal, Witcher 3, Hellblade, etc.

Last edited by curl-6 - on 08 July 2021

curl-6 on 08 July 2021
padib said:
curl-6 said:

I can't comment on Smash as I'm not into that, but Splatoon 2 for example has a new campaign bigger than the first game's, all the new multiplayer content you'd expect from a sequel, and the new Salmon Run mode.

As a Switch owner who also had a Wii U and isn't fond of the amount of ports from it, the games that made Switch worthwhile for me are games like Mario Odyssey, Monster Hunter Rise, Xenoblade 2, Luigi's Mansion 3, etc, plus ports of games like Ori 1 & 2, Doom 2016/Eternal, Witcher 3, Hellblade, etc.

You're not into smash and you gave me such a hard time about how I considered Smash Ultimate a deluxe version of Smash U.

I played Smash U religiously.

You don't need to have played a game to know the difference between a sequel and a port. ;)



Salnax on 08 July 2021

I like the GamePad, but it probably increased the system's price by 50% without its existence ever being justified. In retrospect, if feels like they had the concept of the Switch in mind, but were unable to make it truly portable. Even if you wanted to, you couldn't even connect a second GamePad, limiting its use mostly to single player experiences, which contrasted with the local multiplayer strength of the Wii.

It's CPU, GPU, and RAM were not noticably ahead of the PS360, and in a few areas were arguably behind, meaning that it wasn't as easy to port to as it should have been.

It had as little as 8 GB of internal memory, and although you could upgrade its memory with SD Card's and Hard Drives, you were limited to 32 GB SD Cards.

The game's main menus and whatnot were slow.



Love and tolerate.

psychicscubadiver on 09 July 2021
padib said:
psychicscubadiver said:

Strongly disagreed on ZombiU.
The game certainly had its faults, especially the ugliness of the graphics, but it used the gamepad in a fun and interesting way and made for a gripping experience. Having to take your eyes off the main screen to dig through your backpack or check your map while the action continued on the main screen was a clever way to induce tension, since a zombie could attack while your character was distracted. It made for a nerve-wracking time where you were afraid to take your eyes off your foes and only checked your gear when you were certain of your safety.
Whatever your criticisms of the game, it certainly wasn't shovelware.

Hehe, sorry I went a bit strong there.

What did you think of the rest of my assessment? Isn't it true that the WiiU's design in general lacked usability testing, and that the majority of the games didn't have the depth and finesse that we see in Switch games?

I'm not here to bash the WiiU I loved it, but it's to understand why the mainstream rejected it. So while I'm going strong from a gamer's point of view, from the mainstream point of view, they are also very strict in how they judge how appealing a console is. So while ZombiU might be a cool immersion experience, from an appeal point of view it may have been tedious for gamers who prefer a more pick up and play experience.

I would agree that Nintendo didn't think through the usability of the gamepad or we'd have gotten more games that used it in clever ways. As much as the waggle tech of the Wiimotes annoyed people, myself included, Nintendo got a lot of mileage out of that ability and yet the gamepad was underutilized.

On the second part I'd have to disagree that the games lack depth compared to Switch games. There's a reason Nintendo has ported over almost all of the WiiU's library and that's because they're good games. DK Tropical Freeze, Pikmin 3, Mariokart 8 Deluxe, Pokken Tournament, Capatain Toad Treasure Tracker, and New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe did not add any significant features compared to their WiiU counterparts, but each of them still outsold their predecessors because they were on much more desirable hardware. The biggest problem with the WiiU's games is how slowly they trickled out. The early droughts, where Nintendo hoped that 3rd party ports (like Arkham City, Mass Effect 3, etc) would tide people over combined with the poor marketing and unlikable hardware killed the system, and once considered a flop it was almost impossible to build that momentum back up.



Around the Network
curl-6 on 09 July 2021

The other thing with the Wii U was while it did have some really good games, they were for the most part not the kind of thing you'd buy a console for.
Take Tropical Freeze; as excellent as it was, consumers tend not to want to buy a $300 HD console to play a 2D sidescroller.
It's first party games were mostly the sort of thing you buy for hardware you already own, it had very, very few killer apps.

Last edited by curl-6 - on 09 July 2021

GoOnKid on 10 July 2021

Mario Kart 8 was the biggest killer app, the Wii U saw a significant rise in sales after its' release in 2014. Sadly, it wasn't enough to turn the tide.



snyps on 10 July 2021
curl-6 said:

The other thing with the Wii U was while it did have some really good games, they were for the most part not the kind of thing you'd buy a console for.
Take Tropical Freeze; as excellent as it was, consumers tend not to want to buy a $300 HD console to play a 2D sidescroller.
It's first party games were mostly the sort of thing you buy for hardware you already own, it had very, very few killer apps.

That’s an excellent point. If you discount side scrollers and rehashes, it’s only (Exclusive) system seller was Mario 3D world. Even that was an inferior clone of Mario 3D land on the 3DS. 

I really (really) enjoyed the touch screen features on the games that maximized the gamepad. But the only killer app on the console was Xenoblade Chronicles X. 



h2ohno on 10 July 2021

Super Mario Maker was the game the Wii U should have launched with. It was a legit killer app, something new and fresh after the 'New Super Mario' series had gone stale with 2 games in 1 year, and it made great use of the gamepad. If it had launched in November 2012 instead of summer 2015 the system might have had a chance. But I don't think Nintendo was even considering such an idea until it was obvious that the Wii U was unsalvageable.

One thing about the Wii U's failure is we did get a lot of AA games that Nintendo would never have greenlit on a more successful system. Hyrule Warriors and Captain Toad were made because Nintendo was desperate to get games out on the system. The quickness with which what became Tokyo Mirage Sessions was announced given that there was nothing to show for years also speaks to Nintendo realizing they had a problem. Even getting Bayonetta 2 announced before the Wii U launched may be a sign that they realized they didn't have enough games relatively early on.



snyps on 10 July 2021
mZuzek said:
snyps said:

That’s an excellent point. If you discount side scrollers and rehashes, it’s only (Exclusive) system seller was Mario 3D world. Even that was an inferior clone of Mario 3D land on the 3DS. 

I really (really) enjoyed the touch screen features on the games that maximized the gamepad. But the only killer app on the console was Xenoblade Chronicles X. 

Super Mario 3D World is inferior to Super Mario 3D Land?

Not in multiplayer or technical specs, but the gameplay and general fun factor.