Why so much hate for the Wii U?

[ZephyriaSoul]

To be fair, of them, only Fire Emblem and Mario games are still being made. Nintendo seems to have said "Fuck you and your money" to Metroid fans, and same goes for Mother 3. And FE itself is rarely, if ever advertised.
So while nintendo MAY have more mature games (I enjoyed the shit out of The Conduit) The fact remains that the only ones that really ever get exposure are New Super Mario Bros 1-1/2 3D U Steve Jeff, and Zelda.

Mother is kindof an awkward one, the producer himself felt it was done and doesn't really have a drive for Mother 4 (though they could have localised 3, I guess they just missed the window or stayed their hand cos of the 'samples' thing they were struggling with). No excuse for Metroid other than they still haven't worked out why Other M sold so badly.

But I still have this issue, why is Mario seen as being immature? Because it doesn't have him straight up murder Bowser at the end? Cos of the colours? I grant it doesn't handle mature subject matter but it doesn't feel like a 'kid's game' (taking this to mean bright colours, insubstantial, light on difficulty) it's just a platformer. Are we as a generation meant to have outgrown platforming?

I guess it's the fact that we're so USED to the Mario style of platforming. Most of us grew up on it, so when we play it now, it definitely seems easier and aimed more for kids. And it's...relatively simple compared to other Platformers I've played in recent memory. Like Rayman, for example. In the last level of Origins, you walljump, dash, go between two separate planes, and try to do it as fast as possible while still remaining flawless. In our minds, simple = childish.

 

[Roxas1359]

Bro, I had almost 20 years between Punch-Out games. Stay strong. Eventually the almighty N will realise what they have and stumble into huge piles of money again.

It just feels like they are trying to kill him is all. I mean, he's not even been confirmed for the new Smash Bros yet, and he's a legacy character at this point. Plus Mario Kart 8 has the whole anti-gravity thing now so that's even less of a reason for them to make another F-Zero. I say let Sumo or Sega make it then, because GX was damned great and fully used the GameCube well, as Sega tends to do.

As for you're earlier thing about Mario, I don't find Mario immature as much as I do find him really...bland as a character. In the beginning yeah the character was great and everything was fun, but now you can notice that he has no real personality at all. Now sure it wouldn't be a problem normally, but Nintendo has gone out of their way to give their other characters around Mario more personality than the main character. Luigi is probably the best example of having an actual fleshed out character that shows lots of emotions when compared to his brother Mario. It's also why the JRPGs like Paper Mario and the Mario and Luigi series were so refreshing, because they seemed to flesh out Mario more than Nintendo EAD seem to have. (Sticker Star non-withstanding of course. )

Now I'm not saying that Mario needs some tragic backstory or shit like that (that'd be stupid), but if you're going to give the characters around Mario more personality it'll eventually show how cardboard Mario is. To draw another parallel with another mascot, the characters around Master Chief have more personality than the actual Chief did which really showed how bland Master Chief could be. Another one is Sonic, who while in the 2D days it didn't matter much, we can now see different personalities of the characters. Sonic is cocky, brash, and makes mistakes that he ends up paying for. Dr. Eggman is seen as being comical, but can also be dangerous and menacing, and best of all while he does cause destruction, he doesn't want to actually destroy the world at all. (Lost World made this apparent)

 

[BoredRolePlayer]

To be fair, of them, only Fire Emblem and Mario games are still being made. Nintendo seems to have said "Fuck you and your money" to Metroid fans, and same goes for Mother 3. And FE itself is rarely, if ever advertised.
So while nintendo MAY have more mature games (I enjoyed the shit out of The Conduit) The fact remains that the only ones that really ever get exposure are New Super Mario Bros 1-1/2 3D U Steve Jeff, and Zelda.

Mother is kindof an awkward one, the producer himself felt it was done and doesn't really have a drive for Mother 4 (though they could have localised 3, I guess they just missed the window or stayed their hand cos of the 'samples' thing they were struggling with). No excuse for Metroid other than they still haven't worked out why Other M sold so badly.

But I still have this issue, why is Mario seen as being immature? Because it doesn't have him straight up murder Bowser at the end? Cos of the colours? I grant it doesn't handle mature subject matter but it doesn't feel like a 'kid's game' (taking this to mean bright colours, insubstantial, light on difficulty) it's just a platformer. Are we as a generation meant to have outgrown platforming?

I guess it's the fact that we're so USED to the Mario style of platforming. Most of us grew up on it, so when we play it now, it definitely seems easier and aimed more for kids. And it's...relatively simple compared to other Platformers I've played in recent memory. Like Rayman, for example. In the last level of Origins, you walljump, dash, go between two separate planes, and try to do it as fast as possible while still remaining flawless. In our minds, simple = childish.

Funny story me and a friend were watching two kids around 13 play Super Mario World and doing really really bad at it. When I took over I pretty much flew through the level (Cape for the win). That's when it hit me, maybe games are easy for older gamers because we are so used to it.

 

[Cerebrawl]

I know I've seen a great analysis of why the Wii is a step back for Nintendo, basically boiling it down to it being gimicky for the sake of being gimicky, while also trying to appeal to hardcore gamers, with a big clunky control with lots of buttons, where the Wii with its intuitive easy to pick up controls for casuals and people who don't game much gave it a much broader appeal, it was the family entertainment system for everyone, and the Wii U, it's just an Xbox/Playstation hardcore wannabe, without the publisher support of its rivals. It's no longer got mass market appeal, it's not appealing to the family and casual market, and the market it's trying to appeal to prefer its competitors. That and the branding problems where a lot of Nintendo's former casual market still think it's just a tablet peripheral for the Wii, and alienating 3rd party developers, and you got a recepie for bad sales.

I want to say it's MrBtongue or Errant Signal that made the analysis, but can't find it. It's someone similar though.

It's not going to sink Nintendo, they've got too much money, similarly to Microsoft, it's going to take a few more problems than that to bankrupt the company, but if they alienate their market, and have one or two more failed consoles afterwards, they might just end up having to cut their losses and withdraw from the hardware business, like Sega before them, or at least become a handheld-only company, abandoning the home console market.

....We've discussed this over and over again: they're never going to abandon the hardware market. It's about time people get over that because it's freaking annoying seeing peope spout to exact same thing over and over again thinking somehow it'll be right THIS time. It's like watching those apocalyptic doomsayers who have been saying Doomsday will happen next week. For the past two-thousand years.

Uhm, reread what I said, I wasn't going "Wii U failed so now they have to drop out of hardware, waily waily", If the next couple of consoles flop, and they've had 2-3 back to back financial failures, then it would be stupid of them to keep throwing good money after bad. There will be a breaking point at some point, where the stockowners if nothing else will force them to stop, if this continues. You can only run a business at a loss for so long, even if you've got big coffers, before cutting the non-profitable section becomes a necessary rational decision.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Uhm, reread what I said, I wasn't going "Wii U failed so now they have to drop out of hardware, waily waily", If the next couple of consoles flop, and they've had 2-3 back to back financial failures, then it would be stupid of them to keep throwing good money after bad. There will be a breaking point at some point, where the stockowners if nothing else will force them to stop, if this continues. You can only run a business at a loss for so long, even if you've got big coffers, before cutting the non-profitable section becomes a necessary rational decision.

And that is a scenario that contains so many asterisks it resembles an astronomy that isn't turned on yet. Furthermore, read up on Japanese business because this is how much power shareholders have in it: next to zero. Especially when you're talking about a very traditional company like Nintendo. Again, they're not going to drop out of hardware within our lifetimes. It's about time we stop hypothesizing scenarios that can never logically happen.

 

[faefrost]

When you could just as easily ignore it?

I do. Frequently and successfully.

I do my thing, Nintendo does their thing, and never the twain shall meet.

In fact, about the only time I think about the WiiU is when someone starts saying, "Omigosh, why do you all hate the WiiU so much?!"

I think that pretty well sums it up. When asked we often give our amateur if informed amateur opinions on what the failings of the system are, what the impact on Nintendo will be, and what Nintendo's best paths are from here. For speaking frankly, openly, referencing historical patterns in similar niche companies such as Sega and Atari, we get called "haters".

In short, the reason people "hate" the WiiU is because it lacks appeal to them as a gaming system. It is under powered when compared to even the last gen systems. It has a gimicky interface that has not been put to must use use if you will. It reminds most of them that they all bought Wii's and they sat languishing under a pile of dust for years. In short the console does not sell itself. Contrast that with the two new "hardcore" consoles. XBox One and PS4. Rather than being revolutionary these chose to evolve and refine the familiar to an extremely high degree. These consoles are the games and gaming experiences that the playerbase is seeking. Just even more polished and refined. There is no learning curve. Outside of the dis Kinect there really are no gimmicks. The controls fit your hands and do what you want them to do. The games look bigger and better than ever. So the XB and the PS do not just what the players / consumers want they do it how the users expect, with a high dialed in level of comfort. The WiiU built itself behind a deep wall of learning curve. Controls are not what was expected. There are some good games in there. But to get to them you need to go through a bunch of unfamiliar.

Better marketing would have helped. But only to certain levels. At the end of the day it lacked that intuitive familiarity that the hardcore gamer that it was targeted at look for. Most of us will probably by one as an experiment and a specialty box as the price drops just to have one. But it will not be the center of our console generation.

 

[Cerebrawl]

It would've been better if Nintendo had refined upon the Wii control; lighter, sleeker, better precision, and maybe a few more buttons, in easy to reach places. Heck imagine built-in lightgun!

Heck there's a Taiwanese wiimote-inspired air mouse for the PC that could be argued it does a better job than the original Wiimote, the CyWee Z, which can even be twisted between remote-style, pistol-style and some sort of in-between that's somewhat like a steering-wheel, for car games.

 

[lapan]

And to bring this back to Nintendo, I'm still waiting for my next damn F-Zero game Nintendo...>.>
*has all other F-Zero games*

Bro, I had almost 20 years between Punch-Out games. Stay strong. Eventually the almighty N will realise what they have and stumble into huge piles of money again.

But Punch Out already had a new game just 5 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch-Out!!_%28Wii%29

Little Mac is even a character in the next Smash Brothers

 

[KB13]

Nintendo is doing what it does best, and that is cater to the family and small child community. The people that are "hating" are late twenty-year-old to mid-forty-year-old who don't have kids, and can't seem to understand that a normal eight year old likes these kinds of games. The Wii U has made a leap by adding games like Bayonetta 2, trying to bring in more adult users, but they are sticking to what they are good at. I love Nintendo for that reason, it is family friendly, and most of the M-rated games that do make it into the Nintendo system are third-party.

I know this isn't an aggressive thing but it illustrates something I take an issue with kinda well so I'm borrowing it:

Why is it Nintendo is automatically equated with being for small children/families? Metroid is the closest you're going to get to a proper Aliens game, Earthbound is dark as hell, Fire Emblem is an unforgiving RTS series. But Mario has colours and they still have a mascot who isn't rocking an HK-37 so they're seen as childish. Why is something being fun now immature? Why doesn't this same attitude extend to mobile games (Angry Birds is just for kids, Candy Crush is only for younger gamers, etc). Why are colours now only for kids? Are games without firearms like Trix or something?

Any console not on this list? Region locked.

Uhh... You do realise that the PS4 and Xbone are on that list, right?

Those are the only two that are really relevant at this stage, and likely the only consoles anyone is going to talk about in comparison with the WiiU.

Nope. They're not the only ones that are relevant.

How IS the Ouya doing? That's still in the running right?

It's not really that it's Trix (That's a fruity cereal right?) and it's not that older gamers can't enjoy a colorful psychedelic game every once in a while, but take a look at how each company advertises, X-box shows; call of duty, Diablo III, Titan Fall, and Dead Rising. Playstaion shows nearly the same games in their commercials and then here comes Nintendo with a cute little animated toadstool. I also really can't say that a child can't have a fire arm in a game I grew up with Doom and Doom 2 for goodness sake. Its really all in the advertising and how a consumers feel about the game. I let my eight year old play skyrim with the blood turned off, but I won't hand him the playstation controller and say have fun playing a realistic shooter like COD or Battlefield. I think it is just that a lot of older gamers forget that, yes most of the games on this system are cartoon like, but like you pointed out, they need to remember that awesome games like Earthbound are on the system and run just as well as on others. As for mobile games... I can't say I don't play them and honestly the iOS games that become popular get annoying fast.

 

[kilenem]

Its the same reason why people hated the X1 to a lesser extent. You have a company telling us that you want this hardware with out any game to prove why you need this hard ware and why should take such a risk on investing in this. Rayman Legends Wii U probably makes the best use of the game pad. Compared to DK tropical freeze which doesn't even use the Game pad and its a first party game. You just made your own hardware obsolete. Nintendo hasn't put out a game that requires the game pad or makes it a better experience than if you didn't have it. Specially if you compare it too Wii Bowling, or Mario 64. Those were games that gave you a experience that couldn't be replicated on any other device. Wii Bowling still one of the best motion control games. Mario 64 still one o f the Best 3D platformers. Where's the Mario 64 of the Wii U.

 

[Roxas1359]

Nintendo hasn't put out a game that requires the game pad or makes it a better experience than if you didn't have it.

To expand on this, in Super Mario 3D World there are only 4 or 5 levels that force you to use the GamePad, not counting Captain Toad levels. I've beaten the game 100% with only having to use the GamePad only those times, all the other times I only used my lovely Pro Controller. Hell the only 4 games that have actually utilized the GamePad are Nintendoland (which is basically a tech demo like how Wii Sports was), ZombieU, and Rayman Legends when using Murphy, and NSMBWU/SLU (Luigi U is an expansion pack in my books). Nintendo needs to show us why the GamePad is an integral and necessary thing for the Wii U, but so far they've not done so if you ask me. The did it perfectly with the Wiimote, show it's applications well (albeit at first it was wonky, but Motion Plus improved it), they showed how useful an analog stick would be when navigating in 3d in Super Mario 64 (with dual analog being promoted by Sony more with Ape Escape later); and while the GameCube didn't really do anything that special, it was damn comfortable and only suffered from the very loud clicking that seems to plague all GameCube controllers I've ever had (both first and third party).

I've heard of very creative ways to use the GamePad, but thing is neither 3rd parties nor Nintendo are actually using them. *cough*Pokemon Snap 2*cough*

 

[WeepingAngels]

I just can't understand why people keep saying "Why doesn't Nintendo use the Gamepad in a great way".

1) They do, off tv play is awesome and the best use of the Gamepad.

2) This is round three of Nintendo hardware having a second screen, if you weren't happy with the way they handled the bottom screen on the DS and 3DS, what made you think the Gamepad would be different?

As for me, I don't hate the Wii U or the 3DS but Nintendo pisses me off every Thursday with their piss poor treatment of the Virtual Console. I want to play my Nintendo hardware, I want to give them money but I won't be paying Nintendo prices for fuckin Indie games. Hell, I won't even pay Steam prices for Indie games because I don't want them. I am also sad that my Vita is a very expensive Indie machine.

 

[Roxas1359]

I just can't understand why people keep saying "Why doesn't Nintendo use the Gamepad in a great way".

1) They do, off tv play is awesome and the best use of the Gamepad.

While off-screen play is nice, what value does it add to the game one is playing. I mean yeah, it's convenient for parents or someone who might wanna use the TV, but that's it. It doesn't add any experience to the games you're playing at all usually. Hell, Vita and the PSP has had off-screen play with the PS3 since before the Wii U came out, and it didn't add much (albeit it was kinda shitty too).
What needs to happen is Nintendo should fully integrate the games they make with the GamePad to make the experience better.

And with the Off-screen play for Wii games, I can understand why I need to use the Wiimote and nunchuck for Wii games, but why can't I use the buttons on the GamePad for Virtual Console games, which often require a classic controller. The GamePad has all the buttons a classic controller has, why can't I just use those?

2) This is round three of Nintendo hardware having a second screen, if you weren't happy with the way they handled the bottom screen on the DS and 3DS, what made you think the Gamepad would be different?

Well for one those are handhelds and the power of them is not as much as a console, so more can be done with the console. I still maintain the belief that the GamePad can be used to help bring more RTS games to consoles, with touchscreen being used to help manage units more effectively. I hoped that Pikmin 3 would have done this more, but the game controls better with the Wiimote and nunchuck than the GamePad (then aging it was supposed to originally be a Wii title). Nintendo also has neglected the NFC function on the GamePad with the only game to ever use it being Pokemon Rumble U, although they've said they'll be using more of it now.

 

[kilenem]

I just can't understand why people keep saying "Why doesn't Nintendo use the Gamepad in a great way".

1) They do, off tv play is awesome and the best use of the Gamepad.

2) This is round three of Nintendo hardware having a second screen, if you weren't happy with the way they handled the bottom screen on the DS and 3DS, what made you think the Gamepad would be different?

As for me, I don't hate the Wii U or the 3DS but Nintendo pisses me off every Thursday with their piss poor treatment of the Virtual Console. I want to play my Nintendo hardware, I want to give them money but I won't be paying Nintendo prices for fuckin Indie games. Hell, I won't even pay Steam prices for Indie games because I don't want them. I am also sad that my Vita is a very expensive Indie machine.

The best way to play your game is on a HD TV. Wind Waker Looks freaking amazing and I think your doing a disservice to it buy only playing on the gamepad.

Everyone hated that the DS Zelda's were touch screen only. I liked them but linking at how good Link Between worlds were. Maybe the DS games shouldn't have been touch only. Plus the Handheld second screen is mangable because its still with in your Eye Sight you have to look in two different places with the Wii U

 

[Roxas1359]

Plus the Handheld second screen is mangable because its still with in your Eye Sight you have to look in two different places with the Wii U

One thing I'm concerned about is if Nintendo's DS emulator on the Wii U ends up offering any of the Sonic games on there, because unless we have both screens together that'll make Sonic Rush, Rush Adventure, and Colors a pain to play on the Wii U. I'm still also curious as to why GBA games are being released for the Wii U instead of the 3DS (Mario and Luigi Super Star Saga is being released on the Wii U in April), and GameCube games aren't being made for the eShop. I know a bunch of people who'd buy the shit out of Smash Bros Melee if it were on the Wii U and if Skies of Arcadia Legends were ported...

Spoiler

 

[WeepingAngels]

I just can't understand why people keep saying "Why doesn't Nintendo use the Gamepad in a great way".

1) They do, off tv play is awesome and the best use of the Gamepad.

2) This is round three of Nintendo hardware having a second screen, if you weren't happy with the way they handled the bottom screen on the DS and 3DS, what made you think the Gamepad would be different?

As for me, I don't hate the Wii U or the 3DS but Nintendo pisses me off every Thursday with their piss poor treatment of the Virtual Console. I want to play my Nintendo hardware, I want to give them money but I won't be paying Nintendo prices for fuckin Indie games. Hell, I won't even pay Steam prices for Indie games because I don't want them. I am also sad that my Vita is a very expensive Indie machine.

The best way to play your game is on a HD TV. Wind Waker Looks freaking amazing and I think your doing a disservice to it buy only playing on the gamepad.

I am not only playing on the Gamepad but it's nice to be able to make a console game semi portable at any time. Too bad the range sucks. I can take it to my bedroom but no further.

Also, last weekend my sister in law and one of her teenage friends were over. They both took their 2 minutes with the Wii U and NSMB U and then put it down. My son, who is 11 doesn't want to play the Wii U nor do any of his friends. Quite frankly, I am tired of Mario too.