Wii-U thoughts so far

[GSZX1337]

I always heard about N64 and NGC droughts. For those who experienced it, how does it compare to the current Wii U situation?

I don't recall the N64 era (was 6 when the N64 was released), but the GameCube era seemed to be a little better than the Wii-U with some good third-party titles in addition to Nitnendo's output, but the gaming media I payed attention to made it sound like the GameCube had nothing but the Nintendo stuff.

[foxhound1022]

Now that you guys have said that, the Wii U's game launches do seem similar to the N64 in terms of spacing between the must have titles.

It's just funny how people are so used to a new title from a big publisher coming out every month, so all anybody does is wait for what's next instead of trying to enjoy the game they just bought.

[isiolia]

It's just funny how people are so used to a new title from a big publisher coming out every month, so all anybody does is wait for what's next instead of trying to enjoy the game they just bought.

Plenty of people may also be grabbing new titles, beating them, and then looking for the next thing to play. A lot of that could come from audiences skewing older, and not waiting for birthdays or holidays to get them as gifts. That can easily wind up being more than one game a month.

There's also the simple matter, as has been mentioned, of what appeals to a given individual. With the Wii U's release calendar, that can easily put months between retail releases someone might actually want to buy. So far, I haven't bought a single game for it that was released this year, since most of what's come out I'm not that interested in.

[Tanooki]

I always heard about N64 and NGC droughts. For those who experienced it, how does it compare to the current Wii U situation?

I don't recall the N64 era (was 6 when the N64 was released), but the GameCube era seemed to be a little better than the Wii-U with some good third-party titles in addition to Nitnendo's output, but the gaming media I payed attention to made it sound like the GameCube had nothing but the Nintendo stuff.

It was an intentional lie by the press, they've always been uneven fanboys towards one company or another and usually most the key multi-system sites would not give Nintendo a good shake. I was in college while the N64 had its life and that's why I said what I did as it was like 4mo~ apart on average from what I'd buy a game, sometimes it was longer since I didn't much care for the junk Rare peddled for platformers but I did have Blast Corps, Goldeneye, Conker and Perfect Dark.


isiolia probably has a point there. It's not just gamer impatience, but age group. Those who have jobs and money, no kids, or just free time can knock out a game and go to the next. They're not saddled with a few dollar allowance, and holiday gifting where they'd get a game so they need something more than 3-4x a year.

If I still had the WiiU I'd only be up for Starfox and Xenoblade, perhaps also Rodea if I didn't just get it on 3DS. I know supposedly a remake of Mario Galaxy 2 is coming, that I'd get just to have something to do, but this is going how far into the future?

[RCBH928]

I define droughts as long phases(3-4 months) of no big releases. I don't use it to complain about the console, but its a good indicator about the console's current status and what to expect from it in the future.

The PS2 is not in drought, its dead, but there are enough games to last you multiple lifetimes.

the GameCube era seemed to be a little better than the Wii-U with some good third-party titles in addition to Nitnendo's output, but the gaming media I payed attention to made it sound like the GameCube had nothing but the Nintendo stuff.

I actually don't know about the NGC drought. I just read it somewhere. My opinion is the NGC library is pretty solid with great 3rd party support. As for the N64, just looking at the library of the 5 year console, big titles were released every 3-4 months. Steady quality but not much quantity. More than enough to justify purchasing the N64, but not enough to favour it over the psx.

[Ogreatgames]

I think the Wii U is a great system, I enjoy the gamecube controller compatibility with games like Super Smash Bros U.

[GSZX1337]

It was an intentional lie by the press, they've always been uneven fanboys towards one company or another and usually most the key multi-system sites would not give Nintendo a good shake.

I mainly remember G4 peddling that shit. They seemed to have something against Nintendo.

[BoringSupreez]

It was an intentional lie by the press, they've always been uneven fanboys towards one company or another and usually most the key multi-system sites would not give Nintendo a good shake.

I mainly remember G4 peddling that shit. They seemed to have something against Nintendo.

Most gaming sites have a bias towards one or more console companies, for what it's worth. Not that it's an excuse.

I don't think it's accurate at all to say the 3rd party drought on Gamecube was a manufactured lie. Especially starting in 2004, a lot of 3rd party games only released on Xbox and PS2. Burnout Revenge, Psychonauts, Mercenaries, Brothers in Arms, all the GTAs, and many others never made it to the Gamecube.

For reference, here's the best games released on Xbox in 2005, vs the best released on Gamecube in 2005.

Seriously, I can't be the only one that remembers how Nintendo fans just kept talking on and on about Resident Evil 4 all the way up until the Wii and Twilight Princess launches. There really wasn't that much in the almost 2 year gap between. Gamecube basically died in January 2005.

Just to clarify, the 3rd party problem didn't really kick off until 2004. Before that, EA, Ubisoft, and Activision were all quite willing to give Gamecube a fair chance.

[Sarge]

Yeah, I was going to post about that earlier. I think devs really started sliding away from the system later on, especially since sales of their games tended to be lower on the GC than the others. Nintendo is stout competition.

There's also the matter of smaller storage capacity, and I do think that affected things in some cases. Didn't the GC version of one of the Splinter Cells omit multiplayer because of it?

[BoringSupreez]

Yeah, I was going to post about that earlier. I think devs really started sliding away from the system later on, especially since sales of their games tended to be lower on the GC than the others. Nintendo is stout competition.

There's also the matter of smaller storage capacity, and I do think that affected things in some cases. Didn't the GC version of one of the Splinter Cells omit multiplayer because of it?

Yes, Pandora Tomorrow's the one you're probably thinking of. PT was the first game in the series to have multiplayer, and from what I've heard, it was really fun while it was still going. Chaos Theory and Double Agent had to cut the multiplayer feature as well.

In addition to the multiplayer cuts, the lower number of buttons on the GCN controller screwed up the control schemes of the Splinter Cell games. If you recall, every single button on the PS2 and Xbox controllers had a specific purpose. The GCN versions had to resort to button combos for certain things, because the sticks didn't click and one shoulder button was missing.