what great games are there for ps4/xb1? legitimately asking, not defending. is it just sports/racing/war shooters? i just have never had any interest in those.

i got a 360 because it could be modded, and i got a ps3 recently solely for god of war. i liked bioshock, borderlands, darksiders, mass effect, bulletstorm, ghostbusters, gta, red dead redemption, portal, silent hill, alan wake - and i don't see anything like that yet.

the gamecube got its head kicked in by the ps2, and the wii would've failed if sports+fit didn't catch fire and sell consoles to millions of non-gamers that played for 2 weeks and never touched it again (my 60 year old aunt bought a wii, for herself, and she's never played a video game in her life) - and those people are never going to buy a wii u. nintendo is going to see that their real, non-gimmick fanbase is a lot smaller than they thought (even though i am one of them).

Lol is Cranky Kong actually playable? That's a pretty awesome announcement if so, surprised they didn't hype it up more.

I am looking forward to the butthurt though (including from myself) when Zelda gets announced and it's in 2.5d and built around multiplayer.

Like the vast majority of people I'm probably only going to get one console. So if I'm going to get the Wii U and put up with inferior cross platform releases I need to be tempted with triple AAA exclusives. I think about five is the magic number that give me a really hard decision.
Sadly, because I like Nintendo, I doubt they can do that. How many ten out of ten I want to play that now games did the Wii have?

Sounds like a plan to me.

Like nobody is gonna get a Wii U as their primary console, I think we all know this. You get either XB1/PS4 and then you get the Wii U on the side if you want the Nintendo first-party stuff.

I only own Nintendo products now. I used to have all the sega ones, a 360, ps1, 2 and 3. Ended up selling them though.

that obviously depends on your preferences, but for nintendo fans probably 10+.

Super Mario Galaxy 1/2, New Super Mario, Super Paper Mario, Mario Kart, Zelda: Twilight Princess/Skyward Sword, Super Smash Bros, Metroid Prime, Xenoblade Chronicles, Donkey Kong Country, Kirby's Epic Yarn

Loved kirby's epic yarn! Sin and punishment was a fun game too.

When I said ten out of ten I wasn't thinking about Nintendo Power reviews.

AJW we know you aren't going to get a Wii U and we understand why. Your inability to understand why anyone would buy one or why anyone would want to buy one is pretty shortsighted though.

Can't overlook the value of virtual console either when considering wii/wii u

What. I have no idea how you got that impression.
That list of triple A titles was complete homerism that's all I was saying.

I don't even own a pro controller btw, I just use the gamepad for everything except Pikmin (wiimote/nunchuck).

Am I doing it wrong?

add mario party 8, okami and super mario strikers

I have two pro controllers but have yet to use them

disclaimer: I don't have any sports games or first person shooters

The latest Nintendo Direct release was rather... interesting...

Mario Kart 8 and Smash Bros will be the two highest selling games in 2014. Book it.

Hyrule Warriors? WTF Nintendo!?

Got my kids a WiiU for Christmas. My 6 year old son and I played the **** out of NSMBU today. Good times. Was really impressed with Mario in HD. Was also impressed with how Nintendo can craft a multiplayer game for the whole gamut of skill sets without huge frustration but still allow for some challenge. Good balance.

Fired up Zelda WW HD too. Nice memories.

Will pick up SM3DW.

Having said all of that, I can see why WiiU is failing - the AAA titles are basically just HD upgrades of the stuff Nintendo seems to release annually now (a New Super Mario Bros. entry) and a literal HD upgrade+port of a 10 year old game (Zelda: WW).

Like, in the midst of having fun with this thing today, I'm like "this is sweet, I'm gonna go binge and buy all the great games for this thing", only to discover a year after release, I basically have most of the great exclusives - and I only have two games.

Now, as I said, I'll pick up SM3DW and probably Pikmin 3 and Rayman Legends, but wow, that's barren.

Went to go see when the new WiiU Zelda is coming out, and it looks like (having done nothing but seen a 2 minute trailer) some gimped Zelda/Dynasty Warriors mashup, which, alright, that's curious I guess, but not quite what I wanted.

It's not like any Nintendo buyer is fooling themselves about what Nintendo is, which is the play to get Nintendo first-party stuff and not much else. I didn't get it to play Call of Duty and and GTA and Mass Effect, so whatever, I get that it's not going to be flooded with third-party stuff. But even by the low standards I hold Nintendo to (i.e., I'm buying their console as a portal just to play their own games, and not really expecting a platform in the truest sense), there still isn't much here.

I'm surprised they didn't just hold back Skyward Sword, HD-ify it, tack on some GamePad function, and make it a WiiU launch title (ala Twilight Princess).

Whoever said Nintendo failed by not buying developers to turn into second-party houses to churn out games seems to be on the right track. The high-end WiiU first-party games seem great but the volume of them seems preposterously low. I guess Mario Kart, a new Donkey Kong and SSMB are on the way.

Also holy ****, how did Nintendo get Rube Goldberg to develop their Wii --> WiiU transfer? Can that **** be any more convoluted? Like in 2013, seems completely inexcusable they don't have an integrated shop ala PSN. Want to play your Wii VC games on Wii U? Oh, sure, just ****ing fire up your two consoles, have an SD card handy, and be prepared to transfer all your saves to the Wii U so you can get into the Wii Virtual Console through some emulated Wii experience on the Wii U, or something? I boggle.

Yeah the Emulated Wii VC on Wii U is easily the most hilarious functionality trainwreck this generation

But yeah nailed it, at this point you just buy the Wii U for like 10 Nintendo first-party games over its lifetime. Which I'm totally going to do since Nintendo has my testicles in a vice grip.

Lol. Same here.

I think I'm gonna wait until the Wii U's price is like 150 and Zelda HD is out before I buy one.

Which whatever, I'm frankly OK with. I'm on vacation this past week, so my kids and I finished NSMBU - just the storyline part. My kids are probably going to get a whole lot of mileage just searching around for all the star coins and whatever else to get to 100% completion. They still have Zelda and the Super Mario 3d World after that. So they're happy for a while.

And I don't have time for more than ~10 games per generation anyway.

WiiU seems like a nice sweet spot for the pre-teen and under crowd just getting into gaming and not mature enough for most of the death-dealing on PS4/XBOX, and their parents with nostalgia for the franchises they grew up on.

I'm not kidding myself, I mean New Super Mario Bros. is basically following the CoD business model now, just a yearly release of the same re-skinned game with different maps or whatever. Even the main 3D branch of the series looks the like it's on the yearly release path.

But they definitely have me by the nuts, because it's one hell of a well-crafted ~20-30 hour piece of entertainment every year. Would definitely ship them like $29.99 if they took that Wii NSMB or Super Mario Galaxy and put it in HD and threw it up on the eShop just so I could have a plausible reason to play it again but with HD this time. Would definitely ship another $30 if they took all the same maps and levels and design for Super Mario Bros. 3 and did some kind of HD remake. NINTENDO TAKE MY NOSTALGIA MONEY, JUST HAVE IT, I'M NOT ASKING FOR MUCH, JUST THE SAME GAMES OVER AND OVER PLEASE.

Lol. Oh so true. On one hand, us Nintendo diehards love it, but also try to defend it against the more mainstream/next gen consoles. Nintendo made gaming what it is today. Graphics and how violent a game is makes it mainstream or cool atm, not a true videogame. I think we just need to accept that Nintendo produces the greatest first party games out there, dgaf to be as innovative as they want (billions in the bank help) and have their own niche to true gamers (nostalgic and the young).

As long as the 3dsxl and wii u keep pumping out games once a month, I'm all for it. We live in the greatest era for gaming. Everything is new, HD, consoles are pushing each other, but we can also go back and play the older games and systems if need be. God I love videogames...

To be fair there has only been one NSBM game per console. I've only played two of them and already got a bit bored with it but it's hardly comparable to COD. There have only been two 3D Mario's on a console once and there was like a three year gap between them.

In other news, how the hell is Wind Waker HD still 50 English pounds on the eshop?

I ahd the same problem with the wii. I enjoyed Mario Kart/ Galaxy 1 and 2 and there were a few third party games I thought were decent - boom blox/rabbid rabits/lego star wars/goldeneye but I used to go to the shops and look for a game to buy and usually all there was were a bunch of mini games collections and film tie ins. It was strange really because the console was bought by the bucket load and yet third party developers still wouldnt make games for it. I guess the graphics were so far inferior that they thought it was too much effort to cross platform.

Looked at getting the wii u but there's been no mario galaxy or cart and the controller seems pointless. How much use can u get out of a screen on ur controller when ur looking at the tv screen to play?

The Wii has tons of good third party games. I have a huge backlog, but off the top of my head:

Madworld
Monster Hunter Tri
Last Story
Rune Factory Frontier
Zach & Wiki
Bully (guess not an original)
Little King's Story
Okami (guess not an original)
Elebits
Epic Mickey 1 & 2
Rayman Origins
Muramasa
De Blob 1 & 2
Rabbids games
Red Steel
Tatsunoko vs. Capcom
House of the Dead Overkill
Resident Evils

Is that enough? Should I keep going?