People always say that "consoles are dead". In fact, theyve been saying the same thing for a very long time, since the Atari era and here we are, many generations later and consoles are still going strong. Stronger than ever, i have to say. So dont listen to that BS pseudo analysts pull out. Theyre just trying to get some attention. And just to remind you, a LOT of people said that the 3DS marked the end of the portable gaming devices. Look at sales figures right now. It sold more than the original DS on the same period of time. Of course, it had a weak start (relatively weak, 3DS always sold more than the DS did on the same amount of time) and a price cut, but sales figures undoubtely prove that portable gaming devices are far from dead.

And its just ridiculous to compare tablets and phones to consoles. Its absurd. Theyre completely different things, and have different markets. They just share a few identical functions, such as as playing games, but theyre still different. Its like comparing a catapult and a plane. You can fly on a plane. If you sit on a catapult you can be sent flying into the air, so theyre the same thing? Same logic used by those who deffend the tablets will kill consoles. Maybe theyll take a fraction of the casual public away from consoles, but theyll never take hardcore gamers, which are the ones who really spend on games and keep industry going, after all.

Also, gameplay experience is very different on tablets and on consoles. Youll never ever get the same experience on both. Tablets are great for casual gaming, but for hardcore it sucks. The first thing that comes to mind are controls. Tablets werent made to be gaming devices. Touch controls are great for some casual games, but for most classic hardcore games such as action games it just isnt good enough. Its playable, but unreliable, not as accurate as a controller. I say this from experience, i do play on my ipad sometimes, even FPS games like Modern Combat and other few good games from Gameloft. It cant be compared to a console experience.

The games itself are also very different from console, since on Tablets they target the casual market. And they sell games dirty cheap, most are 1 dollar, and even free (you know, pay 2 win model), and the most expensive are Gameloft games which are 7 dollars, but also get to 1 dollar on deals. There are a few exceptions such as Square RPG games which are 12 to 15 dollars, but thats an exception, not a rule. You just cant expect these cheap budget games to have the same prodection value and depth as a 60 dollars console game. Its ridiculous. You cant expect to play a game with the same depth as Skyrim on a Tablet. It just wont happen.

I dont how things are where you guys live, but here in Brazil the price is also a huge problem for tablets. An iPad 2 64GB here costs more than an Xbox 360, a PS3 and a Wii COMBINED. You could buy all 3 current generation consoles for the price of an iPad. At least here. I dont think any gamer would spend more on a device that doesnt even get close to the console experience.


About the Wii U, i doubt itll be as successfull as the Wii, but i think itll sell very well. Nintendo does know how to make great games, and that will attract consumers. And they have loyal fanbase which will buy it anyway, such as myself. The biggest problems they have to fix have already been pointed here, their online system which SUCKS SO MUCH (everyone HATES the friend code system Nintendo, WAKE UP) and third party support, which they seem to be doing a good job, they already got a few good third party titles confirmed for Wii U, such as Battefield 3, Darksiders 2, Ninja Gaiden 3 and Metro Last Light.

CONSOLES are dead now??

Well, can't say that I'm not happy to hear it. Us PC gamers have had to put up with that sort of crap for years. Looks like the tables have finally turned.

OT: Any self respecting gamer should be excited about the Wii U. That said, anyone who thinks it'll suffice as their primary console doesn't have a good sense of pattern recognition. I'm gonna predict that it'll be host to the usual shining 1st-party gems from Nintendo, a handful of highly unique and unusual 3rd party titles, and a whole slew of bad ports and shallow gimmicks. Just like the Wii, it will provide a lot that you won't get from the Microsoft/Sony consoles, but likewise it will fail to provide a lot of what they do.

Well, that's true. I wasn't much into the gaming scene when the Wii came out, so I'm not sure what it looked like per-release, but the fact that Nintendo has already announced some big-name 3rd-party titles (especially Metro Last Light) seems promising.

I agree completely, the DSi was pretty much a waste of everyone's time. DSi enhanced cartridge games did turn up though, it was just 'too little, too late'. Pokemon Black/White was enhanced, as were a few other games. They mostly just made optional use of the camera. I believe there was a DSi enhanced version of the Korg software synth too that made use of the additional RAM.

And you're right, it's certainly not a tablet. I guess you could call it a 'tablet input' or something, probably meant to capitalise on how comfortable the average consumer is becoming with tablets.

Oh well, we'll know in 4 or 5 years time whether it was a good idea or not by whether MS and Sony come out with their own versions or not. ;)

No. I loved my N64 and Gamecube. Nintendo lost me on the Wii, worst purchase ever.

I got more out of the Wii than any other Nintendo console. There are a lot of lesser known games on it that I love. The Skycrawlers: Innocent Aces, and Baroque are a couple of my favorite games ever. I really got my monies worth out of the 64 as well. I only paid $100 for my Cube. I do think I got that much out of it. There ended up being only 4 or 5 games on it that I really care about though.

I'm moderately interested, but that's mainly because it will have wii backwards compatibility. I skipped the wii completely but I still want to play SMG1&2, Skyward Sword and a few other wii games. If I buy the wii u I will be getting two systems in one.
I'm still gonna wait till the wii u has a decent amount of games( really all I care about is Mario) that i want, which judging by Nintendo's history, will take a awhile. My guesstimate for my purchase date=Mid 2014

Nintendo uses pretty slick marketing tricks, therefore initial and later sale will be okey, but others will top the innovation of theirs in no time especially in the tablet marketing era, even google is making console now ..lol

Agreed. With the commercial failures of the DS and 3DS and their touchscreens, it is only natural that the Wii U will suffer the same fate. And with the Wii U specs all finalized and leaked, and proving that it is not a next-gen console, the failure will be even more extreme, because it has been shown time and time again that the least powerful console always fails to capture the market.

Haha, yeah, I was a tad irritated that 3rd parties had the tendency to either run from the Wii or make shovelware for it, then act like MS and Sony motion controls were the greatest thing since sliced bread.

I'm just recently understanding why a lot of people feel this way. Upon release, the controls weren't the greatest, Nintendo titles were few and far in between, not much outside support.

The seemingly rushed release of the 360 (I say rushed because early 360 systems were plagued with problems) and their clever commercials touting 250+ games for it (I think they might have been counting XBox games for Elites, not sure, tho - I haven't trusted MS in ages) might have put Nintendo in a tough spot.

Taking extra time to release the Wii by instead perfecting the motion controls would have given the 360 extra time as the only released console in that generation. Then the PS3 would have come out, and the Wii still being developed (hypothetically), would cause more problems. They do call it the console race, after all!

True, Nintendo's haste was damaging, but the hypothetical option sounds more damaging.

As long as Nintendo plans carefully, this shouldn't happen to the Wii U... unless 3rd parties make a peculiar decision to abandon ship. Which I doubt. Innovation, ahoy!

Can't tell if really dry sarcasm or trolling... both?

I think you need to invert his statement into the exact opposite meaning to get the most probable outcome. Example:

"Nintendo has been loosing money with the DS" into "Nintendo has been printing money with the DS".

That was my point, I did say I thought it was probably sarcasm. :P

I made it SimpleWiki-er. ;)

I didn't mean to imply that I felt the touch screen was a failure or anything. I don't think that's the case at all. Its geat for cirtain types of games. Like I said though, most of my games just don't benefit from it. I have 3 games were touch control is well done, and useful. the rest either have optional tacked on touch control, or none at all. I think that's really going to come into play on a console even more.

I say that the Wii U is not really a next gen console because Shigeru Miyamoto says its not going to be that much more powerful than the PS3 or 360.

Wii U development kits have been reported to be using something similar to ATI 4870. A GPU based on 2008/09 technology will not mean a full generational leap, but it will likely still be significantly more powerful than Xbox 360 or PS3 - around 3x or 4x more powerful, if Moore's Law is to be believed. Not a full generational leap, but still around halfway. That's probably what Miyamoto meant.

Of course, there is still the question of whether or not PS4 or Xbox 361 will be a full generation leap. Are Microsoft and Sony still willing to lose a tonne of money on every console sold like they did this gen? Is Sony willing to release the PS4 at a $600 price point like they did with PS3?

Of course, there is question of whether or not the latest technology you see on PC can even be used for console in the first place. Video cards have gotten bigger and bigger every year - not just the card itself, but also the cooling. Can the power (and cooling) equivalent of an AMD 6970-based video card fit into a console? I don't know... Unlike the Radeon 4870 cards, the Radeon 6970-based cards can't even fit into my mid-sized tower, nevermind a console.

I think the important thing is that Wii U be at least powerful enough to run all games at [b[1080p, and not be like the Xbox 360 and PS3, which run games at 720p or less. I'm sure Nintendo realizes this as well. Nintendo must be aiming for that all-important 1080p threshold - they'd be absolutely crazy and stupid not to. The extra screen on the controller (854x480 resolution) will require extra power as well.