The Wii-U Deserved Better

To quote Sheen from Jimmy Neutron: "Why must the good die young?". Entirely too many great things have been taken from us without having a proper chance to shine; like River Phoenix, Hannibal, and Shock Tarts (remember those delicious, chewy fuckers?) just to name a few. Much like them, as well as the Dreamcast, the Nintendo Wii-U could have been awesome if given more time. Well, more time and some better decisions by Nintendo.

All of these feelings came rushing to me after booting up my Wii-U to play some Custom Robo (mine is softmodded, so it can play GameCube games). I just can't help but feel like the Wii-U was capable of so much more, and ended up being a prototype for the Switch. Essentially used and then left on the side of the road.

Let's take a goddamn look.

Why did it fail?

The Wii-U was Nintendo's contender for the 8th generation and was released in 2012 to compete against the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Even with its small head start, the Wii-U immediately fumbled out of the gate. First off, Nintendo did an awful job of marketing and promoting the Wii-U. Due to how often they showed off the Gamepad and completely neglected the actual console itself, most first impressions of the Wii-U were that it was some kind of accessory for the Wii, rather than a whole new console. Advertising for the new console was almost non-existent.

It seemed that around this time, they focused way more on the 3DS (the handheld counterpart to the Wii-U) and neglected the Wii-U. Heck, the 3DS family of systems sold nearly 75 million units as of 2022. I know the 3DS was a dud at launch as well, but Nintendo very quickly turned that around by discounting the system by almost one-third of the original price.

Another thing that held the console back was its extremely limited third-party support. Due to how underpowered the Wii-U was compared to the Xbox One and PS4, a lot of third-party games completely skipped Nintendo this time around. While the Wii-U did have some third-party launch titles, like Assassin's Creed III, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, and even Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed (one of my favorite racing games of all time), the third-party games were incredibly few and far between. But the few third-party games that did release on Wii-U came with some pretty cool exclusive content. Tekken Tag Tournament 2 on Wii-U featured exclusive game modes, costumes based on Nintendo characters like Captain Falcon, Mario, and Star Fox, and even came with all DLC included. Wii-U versions of games like Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012) are seen as the best ways to experience them due to extra features with the Gamepad or improved textures and lighting.

I'll admit that the UI can be kind of frustrating and cumbersome. Pretty much anything that you click on has to go through a loading screen that can take a few seconds. It also feels like an eternity to go from a game back to the home screen. Not to mention that the friend codes and Nintendo's online infrastructure feels like they're making you take extra steps just to add a friend or play online.

Here's why it actually rules.

If you ask most people who've had a Wii-U, they'll tell you that it was actually awesome. While it absolutely lacked in technical performance, it made-up for that with some really cool features. One of my favorite things is the little jingles and ambient background sounds that you'll hear in different menus or when you click on certain things. These are some of the most Nintendo-sounding tracks that you'll ever hear.

Let's not forget the Wii-U home screen. As soon as you boot-up the console, you're greeted by this army of Miis. If you have any friends added on your Nintendo account, you would see your friend's Miis and they would share screenshots, drawings, and game updates from what your friends have been up to. While the Wii-U did have the ability to share screenshots and other stuff to social media sites like Twitter and Facebook to show your friends who didn't own a Wii-U, your friends who did have one would have these neat updates as to what you were playing or what you've achieved in games.

The Virtual Console on the Wii-U was quite possibly the best there's ever been. You had games from older Nintendo consoles like NES, SNES, N64, and even GBA and DS. But you also had games from non-Nintendo consoles like Sega Genesis, TurboGrafx-16, and even NeoGeo. The Wii-U was even fully backwards compatible with all Wii games and accessories.

If you have the time and patience to mod your Wii-U, you can even get GameCube games running on it! The best part is that it runs these games natively. No need to mess with any settings to try to improve performance. They'll run perfectly fine and they'll even look better, running at 720p and can be played either on your display with a controller or just on the Wii-U Gamepad.

Does anyone else remember and/or miss Miiverse? This was quite possibly the best online experience for anything Nintendo's ever created. Miiverse was a cool social media service on Wii-U, 3DS, and even on PC. Here you could visit communities from different games and share screenshots, a cool doodle using the Gamepad or 3DS touchscreen, share tips or tricks with other folks, and make some cool Nintendo-fanatic friends.

This was yet another awesome thing that was discontinued entirely too soon. This may have been due to the shift toward social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter and wanting to share your content there. But Miiverse was also on PC and 3DS, so it totally could have been kept alive on those platforms at the very least.

Even though the Wii-U exclusive games were slowly drip-fed to consumers, most of the time they were worth the wait. Quite a few were very highly-praised by critics and fans alike. Nintendo's creativity and passion for making games that are fun first and foremost was on full display with the Wii-U.

While most of the exclusives have since been ported to Switch, and arguably play much better on there, there are some quirks that are lost in translation. Quirks like having the screen of the Gamepad as your map in Splatoon, being able to rotate the stages in Captain Toad, or even using the Gamepad as an entirely separate screen in multiplayer. These features might sound gimmicky as hell, but they were actually very practical and helpful.

Honestly, there just isn't a good way to replicate the use of that second screen, unless it's somehow incorporated into Switch 2's design. Either with a clamshell-like design, having a screen on the controllers, or however else the mad lads decide to do it.

Final Thoughts

Had Nintendo done a better job of advertising this console and marketed it way better, the Wii-U might possibly have become as big as the Wii. Okay, maybe not nearly as big, but it might have performed much better than it did. Maybe they were still riding the high of the Wii selling like hotcakes laced with hard drugs and thought "they liked that, but they'll love this". But you can tell that they learned their lesson with the Switch. They advertise the ever living piss out of that thing, and it's definitely paid off for them.

Who knows? With a few more years on the market they might have finally released a GameCube Virtual Console. I mean, the Wii-U has the ability to run them natively, so it must have been on there for a reason. They might also have given the Wii-U the different themes that the 3DS eventually got. Imagine having a sweet Splatoon theme pack on your Wii-U dashboard.

But it's incredibly hard to imagine a timeline where Nintendo doesn't release the Switch. With Nintendo doing away with the handheld counterparts and focusing all of their resources onto one single console that does both home and handheld gaming, they're able to create some fantastic games. But as cool as the Switch is, it doesn't have that Nintendo charm that the Wii-U had. With the Switch, the UI is very barebones and feels more like a template for something to come rather than the finished product nearly 7 years in. The Wii-U's UI had the cool symbols floating in the background, the neat chimes and ambient sounds in different areas of the menus, and it incorporated parts of Miiverse and your friends list. The Wii-U was a very social console; the Switch is not.

Enough bashing the Switch. I love that console and it's going to be cool to see how Nintendo follows that up. But the Wii-U was a vibe. The Wii-U had pizzazz. The Wii-U had that Nintendo charm that you saw in the GameCube, Wii, DS, and 3DS. The Wii-U had amazing untapped potential that is now going completely to waste, and that sucks.

But that's pretty much it. Hindsight is absolutely 20/20 and the Wii-U got done dirty. If you're interested, my podcast did an episode about the Wii-U and we discussed some awesome things that it did.

PEACE OUT.