Wii U launches on November 18th

[Haggis and tatties]

Well Neogaf are stating its not 5 gig and they are usually on the ball with this type of stuff........but any update over a gig down via wireless is scary when its got the chance of bricking your nice new system......i dont envy anybody having to do this....i would be bricking myself the whole time waiting for it. lol

 

[Bob The Skutter]

There is a theory that it was taking so long because Nintendo's servers were getting hammered. So some were getting served OK some were taking forever.

Anyone got one who can say what it's actually like? Seen a lot of hyperbole about it being awesome but very little of actual real impressions of the system. I have a 32GB ordered, and I expect I will buy it at some point regardless but some of the stuff about it coming out is concerning. Such as accounts being locked to the system you sign up on and non-transferable.

 

[Jim Steele]

Never nunderestimate Nintendo. They only time they ever "failed" was when they tried to compete directly with the competition with the Gamecube. When they unveiled the Wii people scoffed just as they are now and it absolutely destroyed the competition in terms of sales.

I don't think the Wii U will do quite as well as the Wii, as their focus have shifted slightly back onto the "core" market. But I sincerely doubt it's going to be a failure. Chances are it's going to be a cheaper option than Sony and MS's effort by the time they come out, so we'll see.

My money's on a Sony resurgence this gen. Microsoft look like they're dropping the ball a bit. But Nintendo are going to thrive whatever happens.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

It's the silly things that bother me. I have no plan on buying games digitally so storage space is of no concern, yet it concerns me. I don't plan on owning multiple Wii Us so the ability to log on to multiple consoles and redownload stuff isn't a problem, yet I don't like it because it shouldn't be that way these days.

 

[Kemaiku]

If you don't want internal storage and aren't using too many online services then it should go just fine. Everyone who's got onto the game playing phase seems happy enough so far.

 

[Owain Taggart]

With the storage space being so low, it's a wonder why they aren't storing save files in a cloud. Save the files temporarily on the drive, upload them when you quit the game, then retrieve them when the game starts up again. Only problem is connectivity, so I'd be making it an option.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

With the storage space being so low, it's a wonder why they aren't storing save files in a cloud. Save the files temporarily on the drive, upload them when you quit the game, then retrieve them when the game starts up again. Only problem is connectivity, so I'd be making it an option.

They're apparently going to launch that in the future but it's not available any time soon. Though the idea is you can stick your own hard drive on up to 2tb. Though you'd probably have to work hard to get 27gb of saves on the premium version. Even 3.7gb of saves would be a lot. Don't think I have 3.7gb of saves on my Xbox after 6 years.

 

[firehawk12]

The system is fine, I guess? I only have Nintendoland, so I can't really say for sure whether or not I actually like the device for playing "normal" games. I'm surprised that the screen on the pad looks pretty good though.

 

[Kelthaz]

Never nunderestimate Nintendo. They only time they ever "failed" was when they tried to compete directly with the competition with the Gamecube.

How quickly one forgets the Virtual Boy. That thing caused more people to go blind than cataracts.

 

[Geckothan]

Meh. Their new controller gimmick is pretty lame.

 

[Jim Steele]

Never nunderestimate Nintendo. They only time they ever "failed" was when they tried to compete directly with the competition with the Gamecube.

How quickly one forgets the Virtual Boy. That thing caused more people to go blind than cataracts.

Oh yeah. Well... that's two. And I hardly think the Virtual Boy is any kind of yardstick

---------------------------------

Turns out the Wii U starts making a profit for Ninty with just one game sale.

That's not bad going for a new machine, opening salvo of a new console generation no less.

 

[TemporalFlux]

Yeah; these things aren't selling. I went to a few Wal-Marts over the past couple of days, and they had plenty of them. With Wii, you were having trouble finding one of those for years.

Really, this whole thing feels a bit like Sega CD to me. It's really a kind of half step to a new generation of system.

 

[Kemaiku]

And not long after the major losses and failure of the 3DS, they really don't need to be losing any more money or sales at this point. If the Wii U fails over the holiday period into the new year Nintendo are going to be in one very bad financial situation.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Yeah, the way I see it is that in addition to what I've said earlier in the thread, the casual crowd which was a huge segment of Wii users and helped make it such a huge success are likely comfortable staying with the Wii. Nintendo hasn't really given that crowd a good incentive to upgrade beyond HD and better graphics, so why would they upgrade, especially when they're things they very likely don't care about? And the added layer of complexity vs the simplicity of the Wii? Nintendo have themselves in an interesting dilemma, and that doesn't even count the price.

I think one of the main reasons for why the Wii doing so well was that it was priced just right. Anyone with curiosity would be able to pick one up, if they could find one on the shelves. I expect that people are balking at the price of the Wii U, leading to a less than enthusiastic adoption rate. I don't think anything can change now, but as I've said earlier in the thread, I think they could have made the pad optional, maybe a bundle with a game that requires it, which would have made it possible for the price to be more reasonable, but as it is, I think it's too tied to the system itself.

 

[Rincewiend]

With the storage space being so low, it's a wonder why they aren't storing save files in a cloud. Save the files temporarily on the drive, upload them when you quit the game, then retrieve them when the game starts up again. Only problem is connectivity, so I'd be making it an option.

They're apparently going to launch that in the future but it's not available any time soon. Though the idea is you can stick your own hard drive on up to 2tb. Though you'd probably have to work hard to get 27gb of saves on the premium version. Even 3.7gb of saves would be a lot. Don't think I have 3.7gb of saves on my Xbox after 6 years.

depends on the games one plays...
If you play Rock Band and use DLC, you need the extra space...
But then again, you would be better of with a PS3/XBOX360 for games like that...

 

[Bob The Skutter]

If you need space for DLC you can buy an external hard drive. My point was saves are usually no more than a couple of meg and it would take a long time to amass 3.7gb never mind 27gb of saves.

 

[Jim Steele]

^ Does the USB hard drive support actually let you do that though? As far as I was aware it was treated as backup, ie if you wanted to run anything off it you'd have to transfer it to internal memory.

Which is, y'know, ridiculous. But Nintendo generally are fucking ridiculous when it comes to that kind of thing.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

^ Does the USB hard drive support actually let you do that though? As far as I was aware it was treated as backup, ie if you wanted to run anything off it you'd have to transfer it to internal memory.

Which is, y'know, ridiculous. But Nintendo generally are fucking ridiculous when it comes to that kind of thing.

From what I've read it seems Mains Powered USB drives work to run the games off, USB flash drives, SD Cards and self powered USB work the way you mention.

 

[Jim Steele]

That's a bit mental. I wonder how it knows? (or why it cares :S)

 

[FPAlpha]

It's an interesting concept but i'll wait until there's more games and most importantly what kind of games.

I'm absolutely no Mario or Zelda fan so Nintendo has a hard time getting my interest (especially now that the next gen consoles like Xbox 720 may come out around Christmas next year).