Wii U Launch Weekend Post-Mortem:
Overall, it's a decent launch. There's a game or two in the pile for everyone, the hardware is pretty good and once you get past the frustration of getting it started up, works pretty well - if slow. There really should have been a plan for more software in the next 3 months, though. There should also have been more attention paid to the eShop contents. The lack of a Virtual Console at all is as bad as not integrating your Wii purchases to it. Nintendo needs to avoid the mistakes of the Wii and keep the eShop and system updates coming. They also need to get fucking real with the pricing.
There's none of the hype and excitement of the Wii launch, but that means it's got a shorter distance to fall from. Time will tell if this is set to be another disappointment, but I'm optimistic that there's a good chance the Wii U will bring a mixture of strong multiplatform versions and Nintendo exclusives. I hope I won't be let down again.
- First impressions of the hardware is that it's really nice. It all has a premium sheen to it and the Gamepad already feels completely natural to use.
- However, the fact Nintendo have omitted an ethernet port on a piece of hardware designed for online use is ridiculous.
- Even more ridiculous is how broken the wireless set up is. Despite having the right SSID, security type and password, the system would refuse to connect to my router. In the end, I had to look up a workaround that involved manually setting the IP assigned to the console and the DNS servers. This should be basic stuff - especially if you won't allow us to just plug the thing into the router itself.
- Also ridiculous in the age of elastic cloud networking is that Nintendo is relying on what seems to be a cheap server in someone's basement to run their entire online network on. Downloading that first 1GB update takes long enough (longer due to the reliance on wireless over ethernet, too), but it gets worse when the server times out every five minutes. It's the same story with the game updates that are required when first playing them.
- The system OS appears to be operated manually by tiny elves inside the console. At least, that's the only reason I can come up with for why everything takes so fucking long. It's possibly down to the Wii U CPU being a bit crap (it's so far being unanimously put down as the weakest part of its hardware set up), but it's also likely down to horrid optimisation. Let's hope that Nintendo actually does something about it with an update down the line.
- No TVii feature outside of America, but we do get an icon for it that just tells us off for clicking it.
- Overall, the Wii U OS lets down the premium design of the hardware. The interface looks ok (too close to the Wii set up for my liking, but it'll do), but it feels cheap and nasty to run. The waiting times are almost as infuriating as the loading screens in Sonic 2006. Almost.
- The Wii Transfer thing takes waay longer than it feasibly should, but the animation is adorable. It's a pity that on the Wii U, it's hampered by being run through the Wii components/emulation instead.
- The inability to use virtual console games on the Wii U side of things is a crime.
- As is the lack of upscaling for Wii games. I suspect this is because (as is standard) the Wii U actually uses internal Wii hardware for backwards compatibility rather than emulation, but you don't even need a particularly beefy computer at home to emulate the Wii at 720p. The Wii U should have been built to that minimum. It would have been a benefit for both the Wii U and Wii games.
- The eShop interface is soooo much better than the messy clusterfuck that is the 3DS version. It's a pity there's literally nothing worth buying on it - especially as there's no reason at all why you should ever pay those prices to download a game. £55 for Assassin's Creed III? Fuck off.
- MiiVerse actually doesn't suck. I'd be almost tempted to claim it as an utter victory for Nintendo in making an online network feature that's better than its competitors. It's a pity, though, that you have to specifically go and find people through Miiverse to send out friend requests. There's no such feature in the actual friends list. A stupid oversight. It will need work as more games come along, though - a massive unsorted list of game hubs is a terribly short-sighted interface design.
- Playing games on the Gamepad, on the whole, look great. It's confirmed that the Gamepad is actually downscaled to 480p, and the colours are a bit faded out (though not enough to make it ugly - indeed, in some cases, it actually looks better than the awfully bright garish colours on games like NSMB U). That said, it's a small resolution and it's hard to really tell the difference.
- One major feature that needs to be exploited a lot on the Wii U is using the gamepad and the TV for two people split screen. It's used in Nintendo Land in terms of 'aysmetric play', but there's no reason it wouldn't also function in basic terms of giving player 1 the full gamepad screen and player 2 the TV. I'm hoping this is what Sonic Racing Transformed does, but I don't have it on the Wii U, so I can't say.
- Nintendo Land actually feels like a full game. It's not as shallow as Wii Sports or Wii Play, and there's plenty enough party game options here to give the Wii U a good initial workout. Some of these games are even worth coming back to as we wait for the 'real' versions to make their way to the console.
- They better fucking update it, though. I wouldn't mind paying for DLC to get new games in it. Especially if they fixed their oversight of not having any Pokemon levels in it.
- Zombi U is a great concept game. It's shallow on story - but they make up for it with a pretty good recreation of London (I like how the supermarket has actual ASDA Point of Sale in it) and a canny gameplay twist allowing you to keep playing after dying by just going onto a new survivor and then finding your previous survivor and getting your stuff back. It's a good demonstration of the visual capabilities of the Wii U too - right down to its inadequacies. There's a fair amount of stutter in the opening scene as the CPU struggles to keep up. It seems pretty clear that the CPU is going to be a constant Achilles heel for the system, especially for third party ports.
- Overall, though, the visual level is about the same as the Xbox 360, with a couple of unique tricks. If we assume the next Xbox and Playstation will be on the level of current PC games, there will be a noticable gap - but it won't be enough to harm the Wii U the same way as it has the Wii. Though, that CPU may make porting down to it a problem as the years go on. Nintendo should probably aim for a relatively short run on the Wii U if they want to still be competitive as the other consoles begin to mature. When this thing hits 4 years old, it's going to really show it.
- NSMB U is more fun than the DS version and the 3DS Mario Land, but overall it's a pretty basic Mario game. The Miiverse integration is cool, but mostly meaningless. No online multiplayer is a fatal (but typical Nintendo) oversight here.
- No Scribblenauts in Europe and no Rayman anywhere is a pretty big hit to the launch line up. Let's hope that the third party multiplatform titles start racking up quickly next year, because there is a risk of a post-launch drought otherwise.
Overall, it's a decent launch. There's a game or two in the pile for everyone, the hardware is pretty good and once you get past the frustration of getting it started up, works pretty well - if slow. There really should have been a plan for more software in the next 3 months, though. There should also have been more attention paid to the eShop contents. The lack of a Virtual Console at all is as bad as not integrating your Wii purchases to it. Nintendo needs to avoid the mistakes of the Wii and keep the eShop and system updates coming. They also need to get fucking real with the pricing.
There's none of the hype and excitement of the Wii launch, but that means it's got a shorter distance to fall from. Time will tell if this is set to be another disappointment, but I'm optimistic that there's a good chance the Wii U will bring a mixture of strong multiplatform versions and Nintendo exclusives. I hope I won't be let down again.
