Wii-U thoughts so far

[AppleQueso]

A game like that could have awesome achievements like "never touch the ground", and other difficult platforming achievements.

[Lazer]

As for achievements, I've never cared for them, but I do think Nintendo should have them. People can get a lot of enjoyment and replay value out of games trying to get them.

Exactly. If you don't care for them, then you're good either way. But if you like them, it sucks when they're not there. And they do totally half-ass it on games like NSMBU with the "passed without taking damage" and "passed with 3 coins" miiverse/whatever thing they do. A game like that could have awesome achievements like "never touch the ground", and other difficult platforming achievements.

You can still play the game that way you know? You don't need a virtual trophy for everything you do in the game.

Yes. I do.

[Lazer]

To be fair, the challenge mode is full of exactly this kinda stuff.

And some Nintendo games are full of this type of challenge. Not Wii U examples, but Smash Bros Brawl, Kirbys Air Ride and Kid Icarus Uprising had challenge walls with hundreds of achievements to get. I guess Sakurai likes giving you stuff to do.

I don't know much about it, but I hear theres a lot of challenges to complete in the new Mario & Luigi game for 3DS too.

And that's great, I just wish there was a meta-system for all accomplishments instead of them being spread out over the various games.

[Cronozilla]

There's a couple advantages to the way Wii U is doing game specific accomplishment posts to MiiVerse over a system-wide achievement system. Games don't have to have tacked on achievements and it entirely eliminates achievement-whoring.

There's actually a deeper issue with achievements, that I don't think people are aware of. They were designed after studying what happens to people when they gamble. Microsoft has done a lot of research, not into how to make things fun ... but in how to manipulate the pleasure centers. Achievements is one of the things to come out from that, and in a lot of ways, its feedback functions like a slot machine.

I also kind of like the idea that accomplishments in NSMBU are hidden. It's more like, you did something impressive, so do you want tell people about it. Rather than, you escaped my trap by getting to Stage 3, Batman.

I generally only snag achievements that are interesting ... and that's usually on Steam. Most of the stuff I do in games are still in game challenges. The actual achievement system really isn't complex enough to allow actual challenges to be made. It's just a list of goals that you get or don't ... it really should be more complex than that to be worth something.

[ZeroAX]

There's a couple advantages to the way Wii U is doing game specific accomplishment posts to MiiVerse over a system-wide achievement system. Games don't have to have tacked on achievements and it entirely eliminates achievement-whoring.

There's actually a deeper issue with achievements, that I don't think people are aware of. They were designed after studying what happens to people when they gamble. Microsoft has done a lot of research, not into how to make things fun ... but in how to manipulate the pleasure centers. Achievements is one of the things to come out from that, and in a lot of ways, its feedback functions like a slot machine.

I also kind of like the idea that accomplishments in NSMBU are hidden. It's more like, you did something impressive, so do you want tell people about it. Rather than, you escaped my trap by getting to Stage 3, Batman.

I generally only snag achievements that are interesting ... and that's usually on Steam. Most of the stuff I do in games are still in game challenges. The actual achievement system really isn't complex enough to allow actual challenges to be made. It's just a list of goals that you get or don't ... it really should be more complex than that to be worth something.

Makes perfect sense and yet it's not something I ever gave any thought to.

My major problem with achievements is that instead of getting rewards in games for achieving goals (like unlocking new characters, costumes, areas, ect.) we just get a digital badge, and instead we have to pay for those unlockables in the form of DLC

[CavZee]

Seriously, what happened to in-game unlockables?
-_-

Achievements are fine I guess, but I don't really care about them either way. I actually turned off trophy notifications on my ps3 and I'm not looking back. >=]

[ZeroAX]

The only game that I remember doing trophies right was Little Big Planet because:

1. The stuff you did to get the achievements was the same stuff you did to unlock new building materials and costumes for your sackboy, so basically it just pushed you a little bit extra to unlock all the stuff in the game

• It pushed you to get dirty in the online play, when many people would probably not bother playing many online levels, or reviewing and leaving feedback, or creating levels of their own.

[Lazer]

There's actually a deeper issue with achievements, that I don't think people are aware of. They were designed after studying what happens to people when they gamble. Microsoft has done a lot of research, not into how to make things fun ... but in how to manipulate the pleasure centers. Achievements is one of the things to come out from that, and in a lot of ways, its feedback functions like a slot machine.

This is creepy.

[jay_red]

There's actually a deeper issue with achievements, that I don't think people are aware of. They were designed after studying what happens to people when they gamble. Microsoft has done a lot of research, not into how to make things fun ... but in how to manipulate the pleasure centers. Achievements is one of the things to come out from that, and in a lot of ways, its feedback functions like a slot machine.

This is creepy.

There is a whole lot more to it than just the achievements, know why in COD the numbers pop up after every kill, and you can see that progress bar inching forward after every game? Or how about killing every monster, breaking open every chest is Diablo? Its all tied to that same reaction people get when gambling.

[RCBH928]

@CRTGamer

I do not mind having a dedicated player, but my problem you see is that I have too many devices to connect to my TV. Currently I am hooking up a DVD player, Wii, 360, WDTC, TV cable box, and all I have is about 2 HDMIs and 1 component . I still want to hook-up N64 and Dreamcast . If for example the Wii U can do Bluray player thats one less device I have to worry about. If you know how can I solve this problem please inform me.

As for physical media I can only say , even though there will be those who buy it , the way I see it is that media companies will only stop making them once sales start to drop. Not sure if this is whats happening to music CDs yet but last I heard many physical music stores has been shutting down. Its definitely what is happening to video rental stores. Even if they continue to make them, they will do a bad job creating them. I almost get a heart attack every time I insert a DVD in and it has PLAY and SUBTITLES option only. Looks like some teenager did it on his spare time using shareware.