Six Reasons To Buy A Wii U Instead Of A PS4 Or Xbox One - Forbes
The holidays are upon us. Thanksgiving gave way to Black Friday. Black Friday set the stage for Christmas. And we slackers out there—those of us who don’t have the moxie or the guts to get up that early and go stand in line in the cold—still have our shopping ahead of us.
For some, this means deciding what to buy out of a bevy of choices. For shoppers and families looking to introduce a new video game console to their home, the choices are more varied than ever.
You could go with a last-gen offering like the PS3 or the Xbox 360. I give reasons why you should buy a PS3 over an Xbox 360 here, and reasons why you should buy an Xbox 360 over a PS3 here.
But today, I’m going to argue in favor of Nintendo’s latest and greatest (and worst-named) video game console: the Wii U. This small box of gaming goodness packs a much bigger punch than it did last holiday season, and it’s the best new-gen gaming machine on the market today in terms of pure gaming value.
Here are six reasons why.
1. It’s the cheapest of the three.
Of the three new-gen consoles, the Wii U is by far the cheapest. For $299.99 you can snag a 32GB console with Nintendo Land and Super Mario 3D World.
That’s a great deal. Even with the Xbox One Assassin’s Creed Unity bundle at just $349.99 right now, the Wii U is cheaper and comes with two games instead of one. Update: The Xbox One bundle actually comes with two games also, as it includes Assassin’s Creed IV as well. Meanwhile, the PS4 Lego Batman/LittleBigPlanet 3 bundle is going for $399.99.
2. You don’t have to pay a monthly subscription to access content.
Of course, the Wii U is also cheaper thanks to Nintendo not charging for its online services. No app or online multiplayer is hidden behind a monthly subscription.
Compare this to Xbox Live Gold ($59.99/year) or PlayStation Plus ($49.99/year) and the pennies start to add up. Granted both those services do offer nice perks, but the Wii U’s online is the only one of the three that is 100% free.
3. The best and the most exclusives.
Nevermind all that. You pay for what you get, right? Well the cheapest console also happens to have the best exclusives of the three—at least at the moment. Granted, the Wii U came out a year before its rivals, but that first year was hardly its best in terms of video games.
Now the Wii U boasts Super Mario 3D World, Pikmin 3, The Wonderful 101, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, a remastered Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, Mario Kart 8, Bayonetta 2 and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. And that’s just off the top of my head. Upcoming exclusives include the new Xenoblade game, a brand new Legend of Zelda, Splatoon and the Shin Megami Tensei/Fire Emblem crossover, just to name a few. Neither the Xbox One nor the PS4 can boast so many video games you can’t play anywhere else.
Better yet, almost all of these games are simply excellent. Mario Kart 8 is my favorite in the series. Tropical Freeze is a hugely challenging platformer. Bayonetta 2 may be the best action game released in years. And Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is a fantastic brawler.
4. It’s fantastic for couch co-op and competitive play.
While games like Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. can be played online, they’re also really terrific to play with friends in person. Up to four players can play Mario Kart 8 and up to eight players can play the new Smash. Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze has two-player co-op, and Super Mario 3D World has up to four.
I don’t spend nearly as much time playing games with friends in person on any other system, mainly because those other systems are targeted largely at online play. There are a handful of great co-op games on Xbox One and PS4—Diablo III springs to mind, and Call of Duty can be fun—but the Wii U dominates this type of old-fashioned, in-person play.
5. You can play all your old Wii games.
The Wii U isn’t limited to just Wii U games, either. For Wii owners, or for those of us who missed out on the Wii altogether, the Wii U is fully backwards compatible with Wii games. This is a nice perk, and one that Microsoft and Sony left out of their new-gen systems (for perfectly understandable reasons, but still…)
This means you can brush up on the various first and second-party exclusives you may have missed, including entries in the Metroid series, Mario Kart Wii, Super Mario Galaxy, a couple excellent Zelda titles, and more. At least a handful of terrific not-to-be-missed RPGs for the Wii are also available on Wii U, including Xenoblade and The Last Story.
(As I wrote this post I tracked down a copy of Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn to play on my Wii U, actually.)
6. It’s great for families.
This obviously won’t apply to everyone, but if you have kids it’s hard to beat the Wii U. The touchscreen gamepad makes navigating the system a breeze for kids, many of whom are already accustomed to touchscreen interfaces. The games aren’t all kid-friendly (I’m looking at you Bayonetta) but many of them are.
This isn’t to say they’re easy games. Few games are as challenging as Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze these days. But titles like Super Mario 3D World and Mario Kart 8 are wonderful for kids, and of course there’s third-party stuff like Skylanders available also.
These are games you can play with your kids, which is even better. While my family dips into other consoles as well, we spend far and away the most hours playing Nintendo games together. As they get older, my kids can graduate from Mario and move on to tougher games like Donkey Kong and the upcoming Star Fox game which, one presumes, will be mind-bogglingly hard.
~
There are drawbacks to the machine, of course. You won’t find graphics quite as high-def as the competition (though you’ll soon appreciate the fine-tuning and care that go into Nintendo titles.) The 32GB of harddrive space is extremely limiting compared to the 500GB on Xbox One and PS4, though an external harddrive fixes that problem easily enough (at extra cost.) And there is a dearth of third-party content, unfortunately, as major publishers find stronger sales on alternative consoles. Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed fans would do better elsewhere.
Still, the Wii U is a terrific deal with terrific content this holiday season, especially for families and fans of the sort of weird creativity that goes into so many Nintendo games.
Do you have a Wii U at home already? If so, what are your thoughts on Nintendo’s current home console?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0y4hv62YEw&sns=em
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZmxvig1dXE&sns=em
^ Upcoming Zelda for the Wii U
In addition:
The following consoles and Nintendo systems will be backwards compatible with the console and sold through the Wii U Virtual Console:
•Wii (game discs)
•GameCube (downloads only)
•Nintendo 64
•Super Nintendo
•NES
•Neo Geo
•SEGA Master System
Wii U backwards compatibility | Wii U
The holidays are upon us. Thanksgiving gave way to Black Friday. Black Friday set the stage for Christmas. And we slackers out there—those of us who don’t have the moxie or the guts to get up that early and go stand in line in the cold—still have our shopping ahead of us.
For some, this means deciding what to buy out of a bevy of choices. For shoppers and families looking to introduce a new video game console to their home, the choices are more varied than ever.
You could go with a last-gen offering like the PS3 or the Xbox 360. I give reasons why you should buy a PS3 over an Xbox 360 here, and reasons why you should buy an Xbox 360 over a PS3 here.
But today, I’m going to argue in favor of Nintendo’s latest and greatest (and worst-named) video game console: the Wii U. This small box of gaming goodness packs a much bigger punch than it did last holiday season, and it’s the best new-gen gaming machine on the market today in terms of pure gaming value.
Here are six reasons why.
1. It’s the cheapest of the three.
Of the three new-gen consoles, the Wii U is by far the cheapest. For $299.99 you can snag a 32GB console with Nintendo Land and Super Mario 3D World.
That’s a great deal. Even with the Xbox One Assassin’s Creed Unity bundle at just $349.99 right now, the Wii U is cheaper and comes with two games instead of one. Update: The Xbox One bundle actually comes with two games also, as it includes Assassin’s Creed IV as well. Meanwhile, the PS4 Lego Batman/LittleBigPlanet 3 bundle is going for $399.99.
2. You don’t have to pay a monthly subscription to access content.
Of course, the Wii U is also cheaper thanks to Nintendo not charging for its online services. No app or online multiplayer is hidden behind a monthly subscription.
Compare this to Xbox Live Gold ($59.99/year) or PlayStation Plus ($49.99/year) and the pennies start to add up. Granted both those services do offer nice perks, but the Wii U’s online is the only one of the three that is 100% free.
3. The best and the most exclusives.
Nevermind all that. You pay for what you get, right? Well the cheapest console also happens to have the best exclusives of the three—at least at the moment. Granted, the Wii U came out a year before its rivals, but that first year was hardly its best in terms of video games.
Now the Wii U boasts Super Mario 3D World, Pikmin 3, The Wonderful 101, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, a remastered Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, Mario Kart 8, Bayonetta 2 and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. And that’s just off the top of my head. Upcoming exclusives include the new Xenoblade game, a brand new Legend of Zelda, Splatoon and the Shin Megami Tensei/Fire Emblem crossover, just to name a few. Neither the Xbox One nor the PS4 can boast so many video games you can’t play anywhere else.
Better yet, almost all of these games are simply excellent. Mario Kart 8 is my favorite in the series. Tropical Freeze is a hugely challenging platformer. Bayonetta 2 may be the best action game released in years. And Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is a fantastic brawler.
4. It’s fantastic for couch co-op and competitive play.
While games like Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. can be played online, they’re also really terrific to play with friends in person. Up to four players can play Mario Kart 8 and up to eight players can play the new Smash. Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze has two-player co-op, and Super Mario 3D World has up to four.
I don’t spend nearly as much time playing games with friends in person on any other system, mainly because those other systems are targeted largely at online play. There are a handful of great co-op games on Xbox One and PS4—Diablo III springs to mind, and Call of Duty can be fun—but the Wii U dominates this type of old-fashioned, in-person play.
5. You can play all your old Wii games.
The Wii U isn’t limited to just Wii U games, either. For Wii owners, or for those of us who missed out on the Wii altogether, the Wii U is fully backwards compatible with Wii games. This is a nice perk, and one that Microsoft and Sony left out of their new-gen systems (for perfectly understandable reasons, but still…)
This means you can brush up on the various first and second-party exclusives you may have missed, including entries in the Metroid series, Mario Kart Wii, Super Mario Galaxy, a couple excellent Zelda titles, and more. At least a handful of terrific not-to-be-missed RPGs for the Wii are also available on Wii U, including Xenoblade and The Last Story.
(As I wrote this post I tracked down a copy of Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn to play on my Wii U, actually.)
6. It’s great for families.
This obviously won’t apply to everyone, but if you have kids it’s hard to beat the Wii U. The touchscreen gamepad makes navigating the system a breeze for kids, many of whom are already accustomed to touchscreen interfaces. The games aren’t all kid-friendly (I’m looking at you Bayonetta) but many of them are.
This isn’t to say they’re easy games. Few games are as challenging as Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze these days. But titles like Super Mario 3D World and Mario Kart 8 are wonderful for kids, and of course there’s third-party stuff like Skylanders available also.
These are games you can play with your kids, which is even better. While my family dips into other consoles as well, we spend far and away the most hours playing Nintendo games together. As they get older, my kids can graduate from Mario and move on to tougher games like Donkey Kong and the upcoming Star Fox game which, one presumes, will be mind-bogglingly hard.
~
There are drawbacks to the machine, of course. You won’t find graphics quite as high-def as the competition (though you’ll soon appreciate the fine-tuning and care that go into Nintendo titles.) The 32GB of harddrive space is extremely limiting compared to the 500GB on Xbox One and PS4, though an external harddrive fixes that problem easily enough (at extra cost.) And there is a dearth of third-party content, unfortunately, as major publishers find stronger sales on alternative consoles. Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed fans would do better elsewhere.
Still, the Wii U is a terrific deal with terrific content this holiday season, especially for families and fans of the sort of weird creativity that goes into so many Nintendo games.
Do you have a Wii U at home already? If so, what are your thoughts on Nintendo’s current home console?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0y4hv62YEw&sns=em
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZmxvig1dXE&sns=em
^ Upcoming Zelda for the Wii U
In addition:
The following consoles and Nintendo systems will be backwards compatible with the console and sold through the Wii U Virtual Console:
•Wii (game discs)
•GameCube (downloads only)
•Nintendo 64
•Super Nintendo
•NES
•Neo Geo
•SEGA Master System
Wii U backwards compatibility | Wii U
