It's Just Me and Wii U! | Redbrick Gaming

On Christmas Day 2012, my ten-year-old self woke up at the crack of dawn to rip open the present I had been begging for for months- a brand new Wii U console. The truly unique tablet controller, the HD graphics, and the third party support meant that Nintendo’s new console was set to revolutionise the industry- or at least that’s what the impartial writers at ‘Official Nintendo Magazine’ told me. As it would turn out, the general public were rather less enthusiastic about the Wii U than I was; it went on to become Nintendo’s worst performing console in its history, only selling 13.5 million units worldwide.

In reality the Wii U ended up generating no buzz whatsoever pre-launch

Coming off the back of the immensely popular Wii, which sold over 100 million units, the Wii U was designed to build on the existing casual market which ate up games like Wii Sports and Wii Fit, while expanding the library to also include games targeted at the hardcore market. Nintendo was keen to ensure that the Wii U launched with the major third-party games of the era, including Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Assassin’s Creed III, and Batman Arkham City. Combine that with casual titles like Wii Fit U and Nintendo Land, as well as core Nintendo releases like Pikmin 3 and New Super Mario Bros U, and the Wii U was positioned to appeal to as many different consumers as possible.

Series such as Splatoon and Super Mario Maker got their start on the Wii U

In reality the Wii U ended up generating no buzz whatsoever pre-launch. The marketing was confusing, with gamers unsure whether the Wii U was even a new system or just a tablet add-on for the existing Wii. Many of the people who did understand it failed to understand the appeal of the Gamepad controller- it felt like that extended to even Nintendo themselves, with very few games using it in an interesting or unique way. The fabled ‘third-party support’ actually turned out to be filled with ports that core gamers had already played months or even years earlier on other systems, and soon those ports would dry up completely due to lack of sales. The casual crowd that had loved the Wii saw no reason to spend £300 on a new console when their existing bowling simulator worked just fine, and even the core Nintendo crowd were left frustrated by the constant first-party game droughts. One year on from the launch, the Wii U did have two major critically acclaimed releases in Pikmin 3 and Super Mario 3D World, but by then the PS4 and Xbox One were launching, and the battle was over for Nintendo before it ever really began.

For those of us who took the plunge, we were given an excellent library of exclusives to enjoy

The failure of the Wii U is a well-trodden story, so given that it’s the system’s 10th birthday, I would like to pay tribute to the one string the console has to its bow – a unique and incredibly fun first-party library. The system was always excellent for local multiplayer fun – Nintendo Land, for example, made excellent use of the gamepad (for once) for asymmetric multiplayer, meaning that players on the TV experienced different gameplay to the screen on the controller. This allowed for surprisingly in-depth minigames like Metroid Blast and Pikmin Adventure. Nintendo standards like Super Smash Bros and Mario Kart saw excellent editions, and it was also the birthplace of the Splatoon series, a quirky shooter that I would play for hours with the one other person I knew that actually owned a Wii U. Super Mario Maker was another great experience – a title that let the community make their own Mario levels, leading to some truly evil courses that took hundreds of tries to get through.

The battle was over for Nintendo before it even began

The console also had some excellent single-player games. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze’s level design is so good that I would argue that it’s the best 2D platformer ever made. The provocative Bayonetta series was revived on Wii U to massive critical acclaim. Xenoblade Chronicles X gave the player hundreds of hours of content as a massive RPG with hundreds of hours of content, and it shouldn’t be forgotten that the groundbreaking The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild started life as a Wii U game, only being delayed to launch alongside the Nintendo Switch.

The console’s unique gamepad was used in games like Star Fox Zero

Sadly, these amazing games weren’t enough to save the system. The Wii U had the quality but not the quantity – you would often have to wait months between major releases, and compared to the outstanding library that the PS4 would rack up there was really only going to be one winner. The Wii U was clunky, underpowered, overpriced and poorly marketed, with the system being completely sidelined by the Switch only four years after the launch. But for those of us who did take the plunge, we were given an excellent library of exclusives to enjoy. Whether it was the hype I experienced watching new Super Smash Bros trailers with my friends, the time we stayed up all night playing Super Mario 3D World from start to finish, or the many scraps I got into trying to nab the latest Amiibo figures, I will always cherish the memories I had with Nintendo’s confused mess of a console.

Watch the Wii U Overview here: