Wii U Preview Event: The Good, Bad, and Ugly

Today (9/13) Nintendo streamed their Wii U Preview Event from New York, detailing the Wii U's release date, price, and information on the system and upcoming games. The event was approximately one hour long with some appealing news and a lot of dull moments.

 

The event opened with a familiar face: Nintendo of America's President/COO, Reggie Fils-Aime. As usual Reggie sounded very scripted whilst attempting to portray a sense of humor to viewers telling us the Wii U arrives in 66 days but, he’s not going to make us do the math. I was holding back my laughter. As usual he should have just kept it simple. Reggie announced the Wii U will release in the US on Sunday, November 18th; a date leaked earlier this month at a GameStop conference. It was also announced today that the Wii U will release on November 30th in Europe and December 8th in Japan. 

 

Hey Reggie! Did you memorize ALL of that?

 

The Wii U will be released "in time to take advantage of the key selling season." AKA just in time for Black Friday. I think we all understand that the Wii U will be on every child's Christmas list with frantic mother's rushing out, pushing and shoving each other, on that chaotic shopping day some seem to enjoy. No matter the price, if desirable mothers and gamers alike will hand over their money.

 

The Wii U will be available in two configurations. The basic set comes in white and includes an 8GB Wii U console, gamepad, sensor bar, an AC adapter, and a HDMI cable; priced at $249.99. The deluxe set includes a black, 32GB Wii U console, charging cradle, and everything included with the basic set; priced at $349.99. It also includes the game NintendoLand, and owners will be enrolled in the Deluxe Digital Promotion where they can earn points for downloads to use for future digital content. 

 

Controllers NOT included.

 

As you can see there are no Nunchuck's included in either set. Nintendo is assuming you already own a Wii, as they boastfully have sold millions, and therefore they are also assuming you own a few Wii controllers and Nunchucks. All existing controllers and almost all games work with the Wii U. If you don't own any controllers you'll just have to tack on an extra twenty bucks (at least) to your brand new console purchase.

 

Nintendo announced over fifty games that will be released during the Wii U's launch window. The launch window seems semi-lengthy starting on the release date and ending in March. However, Reggie stated that the Wii U's launch window "will be the strongest in Nintendo's history."

 

Many Wii U games are ports of games that will be or are already available on other consoles including Mass Effect 3, Darksiders II, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Assassin's Creed III, and Just Dance 4. Viewers were surprised with the announcement that Bayonetta 2 would be a Wii U exclusive along with the not so surprising Game and Wario, Pikmin 3, New Super Mario Bros. U, and NintendoLand. Far too many games were mentioned to list off here. To see a complete list of the Wii U's launch window games visit IGN.

 

As we've seen before with Nintendo the focus usually shifts away from the games. At E3 the focus seemed to be on the gamepad and today the focus shifted to a little something they are calling TVii. Apparently Nintendo "had to wait for the right technology to come along" before they could provide us with such amazing technology. Watching the event unfold I didn't see any new technology that I haven't seen before.

 

Nintendo has simply taken what has already been done and placed it on the Wii U gamepad. TVii is simply all of your entertainment applications put together: TiVo, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu Plus, live TV, etc. Instead of searching individually through each application for a movie or TV show you can search on the gamepad. The gamepad will show you which applications have the requested movie or show and you can choose where to watch it. To me this sounds similar to searching for a movie on XBL via Bing. New technology?

 

Easy access to your TV and movies.

 

Besides the ease of accessibility TVii doesn't sound too exciting. However, the cool part about it is how it engages its users. If you're watching a football game on your TV you can view scores, plays, and tweet about the game on the gamepad.  While watching your favorite TV show you can view information on Wikipedia and IMDb. Wondering what to watch next? Check out a movie review. Everything that you view is personalized to your Mii and can be shared to the Miiverse and social networks. React to what you see by recommending it to your Miiverse, rating it, commenting, and filling out polls. Unfortunately, Nintendo TVii will only be available in North American at the time of the Wii U's release.

 

The Wii U Preview Event provided a lot of information; much of it useless that I forced myself to feel excited about. It is Nintendo so I've always expected greatness but they continue to fail me. Come November we will either have a Wii with gamepad included or the Wii U will blow us away. I think we all know what the outcome will be. In closing, let’s thank Reggie for telling gamers it's impossible to put a price tag on the total value of a product. Actually it's about $300 Reggie.

Megan Bethke, NoobFeed.
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