The Nintendo Wii U is Great Thread

[Roderick]

I will tell you this: if they do a remaster of The Wind Waker, with all the scrapped content, in HD, for Wii U, I will buy the console. That's a system seller if I ever heard of one.

[BigJKO]

Same here!

[Thrik]

Relevant

[lobotomy42]

So, I have a Wii U. I agree with a lot of the complaints here: setting up the friends list and adding friend codes is not the most intuitive thing in the world, and if you view the console as a direct competitor to the PS3 and Xbox 360 it is in some ways lacking. The backwards compatibility with the Wii is awkward, to say the least. (Although the PS3 no longer features backwards compatibility AT ALL outside of re-releases and the Xbox 360 is no picnic in this deparment, and who knows if the next gen will even offer this.) Some features do fall flat.

Fundamentally, though, it is more a sequel to the Wii than a competitor to the other consoles. Viewed through this lens, it is another adorable little system. The coolest things about it so far are:

• The "Wii migration" animation which features Pikmin manually carrying your save games onto a spaceship, flying through space, landing on the Wii U and then unpacking.
  
  
• The Miiverse. The Facebook-ripoff pages are not that useful, I've found, but it is neat to see other players show up in your single-player games. Seeing notes in New Super Mario Bros U from other players is a great touch. I get smug sense of superiority every time I beat a level that someone else has labeled "This is so hard!" (Yes, I realize that this means I am probably feeling superior to an eight-year-old, but let me have my fun) Also having other Miis wander into your games (or, in the case of Zombi U, other people's former-characters-now-zombies) is a great way to make a fundamentally single-player experience *feel* like a multi-player one. Nintendo seems to really want Demon's Soul-esque multiplayer in ALL THE GAMES.
  
• The Wii U functioning as a TV remote is imperfect, but useful, if for no other reason than I have one fewer electronic object on my coffee table.
  
• Asymmetric gameplay, when done right, is really fun. I like the one-against-many scenarios in NintendoLand, although there really ought to be more than three.
  

TL;DR - I'm enamored of the console so far, obviously we'll have to wait to see what games come out.

[Nappi]

I will tell you this: if they do a remaster of The Wind Waker, with all the scrapped content, in HD, for Wii U, I will buy the console. That's a system seller if I ever heard of one.

http://www.polygon.c...-u-by-this-fall

Also, Half-Life 3.

[tegan]

So there was a surprise Nintendo Direct this morning.

Highlights:

• Virtual Console coming in spring. Everything playable on the gamepad. You don't have to rebuy the games you already own from Wii VC, but you do have to pay $1.00-$1.50 to upgrade them. GBA games coming eventually. Famicom 30th Anniversary sale on Wii U VC: certain games will be available for a rental of 30 days for 30 cents, starting with Balloon Fight, available RIGHT NOW.
  
• Finally fixing the awful load times between menus
  
• New features being added to Miiverse.
  
• New Iwata Asks where he speaks with some of the heads of Platinum Games
  
• New 3D Mario game from the Galaxy team, playable at E3.
  
• New Mario Kart, also playable at E3.
  
• New party game actually looks pretty neat
  
• New Yoshi game with the same visual style as Kirby Epic Yarn from the director of Yoshi's Island
  
• There will be new information about the new Smash Bros. games at E3 this year.
  
• Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem whaaaaat
  
• New Zelda with an emphasis on nonlinear exploration and some kind of multiplayer
  
• Wind Waker HD holy shit
  
• Monolift Soft has a new game that plays very similarly to Xenoblade, but with vehicles (including mecha).
  

So yeah. Wii U has been justified.

[Thrik]

Wind Waker HD. Jesus fucking Christ.

[BigJKO]

Wow! Wind Waker HD.

Now I need to get a Wii U.

[melmer]

[polygon are collecting the news nicely

http://www.polygon.c...ality-and-more#

Although they've posted wind waker remake on facebook and its not even mentioned on the site, i thought i had been trolled for about 5mins

[tegan]

Earthbound hitting Japanese Wii U Virtual Console in March.

9/10 chance it doesn't hit the NA one.

[subbes]

Is the mii thing called mii wara wara yet? Iwata implied that would be the name across all regions but I don't see it on the US promos and quicklooks.

p.s. hd wind waker yissss

(Maybe they could add back in those dungeons they scrapped during the original dev, so the endgame isn't so sparse? Please?)

[tegan]

Is the mii thing called mii wara wara yet? Iwata implied that would be the name across all regions but I don't see it on the US promos and quicklooks.

p.s. hd wind waker yissss

(Maybe they could add back in those dungeons they scrapped during the original dev, so the endgame isn't so sparse? Please?)

It's been called Warawara Plaza since day one, it just doesn't come up much. And although they haven't specified what they mean, they've stated that they want to "tune up the overall game experience." I'm thinking the best-case scenario is finishing a scrapped dungeon; worst-case is making the Triforce hunt less stupid.

[JonCole]

Well, as someone who never played Wind Waker, I'm in on the Wii U as soon as that releases. Consider me sold.

[tegan]

Looks like I was wrong about the 30 cent thing. You keep the game forever, but the sale only lasts 30 days.

So, uh, you can get Balloon Fight for 30 cents right now if you want!

[melmer]

Hoy!

[miffy495]

Shit, getting one of these SO HARD in April.

[Roderick]

Oh, I so want to join in on the festivities, but I first must learn if Wind Waker HD will have the tantalizing scrapped content or not. If it has, I am getting a Wii U like mad, no question. If it hasn't though, and it's "just" a (beautiful, amazing) HD upgrade...

Gotta hold back the celebrations inside...!

[Sno]

I just watched the Nintendo Direct:

I'm not sure i actually like all the filters they seem to be plastering on Wind Waker HD, but if they finish and restore any of the content that had been cut from the game, i am definitely on board for that.

The promises they're making for the other Zelda game are definitely also very interesting. A non-linear Zelda game? Multiplayer?

SMTxFE is something i would have never guessed at happening and i have no goddamned idea what it will be.

I'm not sure how i feel about the VC stuff. Initial reaction is negative, but Nintendo could have just as easily not even given you the option to upgrade like that, made you buy things again. I mean, and the VC games i've bought are games i really, really love, so i'll probably end up sinking the twenty bucks or so it would take to upgrade them. It sounds like the Wii U VC is at least adding some pretty substantial new features.

The various MiiVerse/OS upgrades all sound nice.

Also, how nice of Nintendo to just tell me flat out that i don't have to buy a Wii U for at least two more months.

New Mario from the Galaxy/3D Land team is definitely worth being excited about.

That Yoshi game looks adorable.

Bayonetta 2 and Wonderful 101 continue to look awesome. (While clearly a completely different style of game, i think Wonderful 101 has a slight Viewtiful Joe vibe.)

The Monolith game is probably the thing i'm most excited about in there, Xenoblade firmly established itself as one of my favorite recent RPG's, and i think that trailer is incredibly exciting. (It's very definitely the Xenoblade ability bar in there, and the combat looks very similar. The character at the end also looks a lot like the main character of Xenoblade. Direct sequel, maybe? There's also some rumors going around that pin the game as having a multiplayer focus.)

A lot of good stuff here though, the Wii U just went from "Yeah, i guess i'll probably buy one" to being something i'm really pretty excited about.

[lobotomy42]

The biggest disappointment with the virtual console is that it sounds like they're going to slowly trickle the same games out all over again. So it's likely that the final Wii U VC Library will actually be SMALLER than the Wii's.

[miffy495]

Give me Yoshi's Island and Earthbound. After that, we're good. I can still play all my Wii VC games on the Wii U, just not on the gamepad and with those extra dealies, right?

[Sno]

You can still play Wii VC games on the Wii U, yeah.

You have to upgrade them to the Wii U versions for all the extra features.

[miffy495]

Looking up news stories, it looks like there's no mention of N64, only NES, SNES, and GBA games. Can anyone who watched the thing confirm this? It seems like kind of an odd omission. Also, was the stream only about Wii U, or did they talk about 3DS as well? If I can expect some GBA love there, I'll be very happy.

[Sno]

The stream only talked about the Wii U, and i don't recall it being said which system libraries would be present at the launch of the Wii U VC. I'm sure they'll start with some of the core NES/SNES stuff and branch out from there as they build the selection back up with new/updated additions.

Wait... GBA games on the Wii U VC?

Where did you read that?

[miffy495]

Virtual Console coming in spring. Everything playable on the gamepad. You don't have to rebuy the games you already own from Wii VC, but you do have to pay $1.00-$1.50 to upgrade them. GBA games coming eventually. Famicom 30th Anniversary sale on Wii U VC: certain games will be available for a rental of 30 days for 30 cents, starting with Balloon Fight, available RIGHT NOW.

Also, this.

[Roderick]

Can I also express my fondness for the fact that Nintendo is just going with Iwata, reading from an autocue while standing stiff as a plank, for making their huge announcements? It's so wonderfully down to earth. He should do it, because he's the guy making the decisions. No flash, no actors, no pumping iron, just the real Iwata.