The Xbox One and PS4 will have none of the new Nintendo games that are coming out. Nintendo games are arguably some of the best games that are made nowadays. Super Smash Brothers could take on several "Next gen" games any day of the week.
Nintendo is
one developer. Amongst a world of others. If you can be satisfied a console with an insanely small library next to the others, be my guest.
That's what Nintendo does. They hold you hostage to a bad console with their exclusives.
And their exclusives aren't even
that good. Are they good games? Yes. But a large portion of their appeal lies in fan loyalty, in series fandom. They aren't unmatchable. There are tons of games out there in the same level of quality, if you just take off the rose-colored glasses. Certainly more on the other consoles than will get to the Wii U.
For a lot of people, specially those of us not quite so enamored with Nintendo, the Wii U will be laughably insufficient, just like the Wii.
Who cares if the PS4 is the next generation of the Playstation?
Whooooosh. That was the sound of my point flying over your head. The PS4 isn't next gen because it's a PlayStation, it's next gen because it has superior hardware and next gen games. The Wii U does not.
Better hardware does not directly mean better games. I'd argue that the original Resident Evil is better than Resident Evil 6 any day of the week. Sometimes, hardware makes a difference but the two are not DIRECTLY linked.
Better hardware doesn't mean better games, no, but I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that the point of the console cycle is improving hardware. Always has been. And the point of improving hardware is giving games greater potential and power.
This is something the Wii U just doesn't do. Historically, console generations move forward in hardware potential. The Wii U has a freaking DVD drive. Even the 360 had something better.
Give me a break.
Nintendo games are some of the best games on the market. They're innovative under hardware restrictions and still manage to pull out a game better than 80% of the games out there now.
I'd also like to point out that the PS4 and Xbox One have done nothing innovative. At least Nintendo tried to do something to change the way we play games. And, if Nintendo has a different controller it can help greatly in distinguishing a game on the Wii U and the game on the Xbox One,
You wanna talk innovation?
What Nintendo does is try to implement new concepts far before hardware will allow them to be actually good, in their rush to be "innovative", and they just end up being gimmicks. Sorry. The Wii Remote was a gimmick and only came into its own with Wii Motion Plus, far too late. The GamePad is terrible hardware just the same.
Besides, Nintendo is messing with something that isn't broken and doesn't need fixing, the controller. The standard controller is fine. Pushing buttons doesn't mean you're not immersed in a game, just like making big motions doesn't immerse you in a game.
You know what
is innovative? Portal 2 is innovative. Minecraft is innovative. The Last of Us is innovative. Journey is innovative.
Super Smash Bros isn't innovative. Another 3D Mario game isn't innovative. Ocarina of Time 3D isn't innovative.
You see, Nintendo
doesn't care about innovation or taking risks. If they did, they'd be introducing new IPs left and right and reinventing the ones they already have. No, what they do is introduce gimmicky mechanics that appeal to the casual market and distinguish them from the real players in the console world, with whom they cannot compete directly.
Nintendo has been rehashing the same formulas for ages and releasing the same games over and over and over and over and over again. And Nintendo fans will go out and sing high praise about how innovative Nintendo is, just as they buy the latest remake of Ocarina of Time.
Innovation in
games, that's what I'm interested in. Not gimmicky hardware. Nintendo only seems to be interested in the latter.