The Nintendo Wii U turns 5 years old

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November 18, 2012 was a big day; Nintendo had just released its latest console onto the market. The Wii U was ready for the spotlight, armed with its tablet controller and exclusives like Nintendoland and New Super Mario Bros. U, Nintendo was ready to move into the "HD" era. Offering two variations, a white 8GB console that retailed for $299.99, and a 32GB black version, for $349.99. Bundled with it came the infamous Wii U tablet controller, Nintendoland, and the system itself. Those who purchased the console on launch also had access to third party ports and titles like Assassin's Creed III, Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition, and Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed. It was a modest lineup, and many people balked at the mildly outdated technology and few games offered. Nintendo had high hopes for its console, projecting sales of 90 million units.

The Wii U would go on to get mild third party support, with ports of games like Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Monster Hunter 3: Ultimate, and Mass Effect 3. Ubisoft had planned to really back the Wii U, but when sales weren't up to expectations, the publisher began to turn its back on the console, to the point of taking the then to-be Wii U exclusive Rayman Legends, and making it multiplatform. Competition from stronger consoles like the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 further hurt the Wii U, as customers weren't swayed to buy a weaker console with few exclusives. Nintendo looked to be in a bind--their 2013 lineup would be crucial if they wanted to turn around their low sales.

The following year brought a good chunk of games to the table. There was a mainline Mario game in the co-op focused platformer, Super Mario 3D World. A classic Zelda game from the GameCube era got a fresh coat of high def paint with Wind Waker HD. Pikmin 3 hit store shelves to moderate praise, and SEGA signed a contract with Nintendo to create three Sonic games for the Wii U, one of which being Sonic Lost World. However, it wasn't enough. Sales foundered, and the Wii U continued being ridiculed by many.

2014 was certainly a turnaround year for the system. Nintendo came out of the gate strong; their highly anticipated Super Smash Bros. title was released after years of teasing. SEGA had given an unlikely sequel in the form of Bayonetta 2. In-house studio Retro put out what was considered one of the best platformers in years: Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. Nintendo fans cheered as a new Mario Kart game finally revved into full gear. An even more unlikely alliance occurred when Koei Tecmo and Nintendo partnered to create Hyrule Warriors. Nintendo Nindies was established to give indie devs incentive to put their games on the console, which resulted in beloved games like Shovel Knight, Freedom Planet, and Shantae. Things were looking much brighter for the Wii U.

2015 kept up the pace with a sequel to a well established Wii RPG, Xenoblade Chronicles X, had an overnight success with the creative online shooter Splatoon, and had even more success with Mario Maker. In the end, though, all these games were not enough to save the Wii U from selling abysmally. With the aforementioned library, it has a solid amount of cult classics, well enough to be remembered for years after. Nintendo however, would halt production on the Wii U before the system could have a 5th birthday. Today, the Wii U turns five years old. Though the Switch now overshadows it, the Wii U still made an impact.

What are your fondest memories of the Wii U? Were you a fan? Did you dislike it? Are you yet to purchase one at all, or were you a loyal early adopter? Be sure you share your comments below!
 

the_randomizer

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Is it the responsibility (or good business sense) of the third parties to try or does Nintendo have to incentivise such things to happen? They seemed somewhat light on the latter, almost like it was the 8 and 16 bit days and it was still a privilege to work with them.

A lot of the third party ports were absolute garbage, performing worse than their previous gen iterations. Ubisoft games running 15-20 fps didn't do sales any favors.
 

FAST6191

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While I certainly like to see a good job done I am not sure I am going to let Nintendo off the hook just yet.

The others seem to enforce a measure of quality control and performance parity, and if the incentives were properly done I am sure it would have been better still.
 

bennyman123abc

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The Wii U is, by far, my favorite Nintendo console that I own. I do not own the Switch yet, which might be a game changer for me. Once Homebrew was released, the Wii U could pretty much do anything that a Nintendo fanboy would want it to. My venture into the Wii U library began the Christmas of 2014. I got the Legend of Zelda Wind Waker HD package which came with the free, downloadable Zelda Historia book along with a downloadable copy of the game, The Legend of Zelda Wind Waker HD. I also got Mario Kart 8 that Christmas, and to this very day, I play the HELL out of that game with over 1200 hours logged on that game alone. That game is the one game my Sister and I don't try to kill each other over. After a while, the virtual console selection became quite interesting with the introduction of Wii and Nintendo DS VC titles. The only good DS VC title released, in my opinion, was Mario Kart DS. That was one of the only Mario Kart games that I actually ENJOYED battle mode on. It also had an amazing mission mode that enticed my Mom to play it while I was in pre-school. As mentioned in the OP, Splatoon was a pretty good game. I only have around 50 hours logged on that game because I never got into it too much. Alongside the title library however, there is the homebrew scene. That homebrew scene is why I joined the Temp in the first place (Well, came back to it in 2016). After the homebrew itself got a tad bit stale, the vWii homebrew allowed for the playing of GameCube games. I beat Super Mario Sunshine for the first time after 13 years by playing it on the Wii U. In fact, I don't know how that game didn't get a port to a newer console like Super Mario 64 did. Super Mario Sunshine is a classic in my opinion. Now that the Wii U has hit the EOL, I kind of feel upset. The Wii U had one last kicker that also made it to the Switch known as, The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild (Which made game of the year! *screes*). After that however, Nintendo dropped support for the Wii U and left it to die in the grave they dug for it. However, the Wii U will still live on in the eyes of fans like myself. I apologize for this line of text but, I am writing this on the world's smallest Chromebook.
 
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