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[Baconsammy]

Oh yeah I forgot animators are the same people who code the OS to load faster...

Joking or just thick? Animators and coders work on what they're told to work on. Someone focused these people's attention in the wrong place. Their abilities and efforts would have been better served elsewhere.

How are the games? I mean the exclusive games.

Mario is good if not lazy. It's more 2D Mario. Nintendoland is cute and accessible, but it's not a 60 dollar game in any sense of the word. Looks like they pulled together 12 iOS games and out them in a package. Should be 30 dollars maximum. Can't help you with Zombie U. Not paying 60 bucks for a game that's getting such low scores. My hope is that Redbox will start adding Wii U titles.

 

[Somnid]

Also, a company like Nintendo has the resources to employ serious load testing and other systems to help eliminate a lot of theses cases.

Given they have time for that, yes. This is not always feasible with hard deadlines (let's tell our hardware partners we need to delay a month) and you would obviously know this. It has to work before you start tuning it.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

Joking or just thick? Animators and coders work on what they're told to work on. Someone focused these people's attention in the wrong place. Their abilities and efforts would have been better served elsewhere.

His point was that they're not the same people. If I'm the kind of person who has the skills needed to develop the graphics and animation for a Pikmin-themed transfer sequence, I probably know next to nothing about optimizing the OS itself. They're different skillsets.

Mind you, I don't agree with his point that this charming little sequence should indicate any polish within the current OS as it stands.

 

[Baconsammy]

His point was that they're not the same people. If I'm the kind of person who has the skills needed to develop the graphics and animation for a Pikmin-themed transfer sequence, I probably know next to nothing about optimizing the OS itself. They're different skillsets.

Mind you, I don't agree with his point that this charming little sequence should indicate any polish within the current OS as it stands.

An animator didn't create all the work that went into making the animations work. Those are the people I'm referring to. Those people need to be focused in much more needed areas. The OS is a nightmare.

 

[Rayis]

I'm so glad I never get consoles on launch day! I might be a huge Nintendo fan but it seems like they really messed up on launch day, Nintendo needs to fix all this shit before I even consider buying their console

 

[hachi]

An animator didn't create all the work that went into making the animations work. Those are the people I'm referring to. Those people need to be focused in much more needed areas. The OS is a nightmare.

I don't see how we can possibly be playing the same system.

The convenience of this OS is far beyond anything I've experienced with a game console. Being able to tap the home button and pull up a fast, tabbed web browser on the touchscreen at any time (even when playing a retail games!)--as well as access the Miiverse and everything else--is just perfect. The overall use of 2 screens throughout the main OS areas is fantastic and streamlined.

I'd be interested in precise complaints if you have any.

 

[Mileena]

Mario is good if not lazy. It's more 2D Mario. Nintendoland is cute and accessible, but it's not a 60 dollar game in any sense of the word. Looks like they pulled together 12 iOS games and out them in a package. Should be 30 dollars maximum. Can't help you with Zombie U. Not paying 60 bucks for a game that's getting such low scores. My hope is that Redbox will start adding Wii U titles.

Is there really only three exclusives? I can think of more in the damn Vita launch lineup.

 

[Barack Lesnar]

Who said anything about Live (and if they didn't that could be a mistake)? We're talking embedded OSs.

Right, the OS. My point stands... they're not going to completely redesign, from the ground-up a new OS and throw away 10 years of work and then have that new OS lose half the features of the previous version. Does this happen with Windows? No. This is is Microsoft we're talking about.

 

[Aquamarine]

Is there really only three exclusives? I can think of more in the damn Vita launch lineup.

Game Party Champions, Tank Tank Tank! (only available in arcade previously), Rabbids Land, and SiNG Party! are also exclusives to the Wii U system.

 

[jamesinclair]

Nintendo stopped giving a shit around about 2006.

They put out the super polished GC, and it got trashed.

They put out the medium-rare cooked DS and started printing more money than the fed.

So why make effort?

Wii only proved the theory. Weak hardware, abandon game development....make mad money.

 

[Skellig Gra]

I don't see how we can possibly be playing the same system.

The convenience of this OS is far beyond anything I've experienced with a game console. Being able to tap the home button and pull up a fast, tabbed web browser on the touchscreen at any time (even when playing a retail games!)--as well as access the Miiverse and everything else--is just perfect. The overall use of 2 screens throughout the main OS areas is fantastic and streamlined.

I'd be interested in precise complaints if you have any.

I think people's biggest complaints are the long load times. Thats the only real issue I have thus far.

 

[kinggroin]

I don't see how we can possibly be playing the same system.

The convenience of this OS is far beyond anything I've experienced with a game console. Being able to tap the home button and pull up a fast, tabbed web browser on the touchscreen at any time (even when playing a retail games!)--as well as access the Miiverse and everything else--is just perfect. The overall use of 2 screens throughout the main OS areas is fantastic and streamlined.

I'd be interested in precise complaints if you have any.

it definitely sport some nice new features not present on other platforms, but it takes fooooreeeeever to get to them

 

[Somnid]

Right, the OS. My point stands... they're not going to completely redesign, from the ground-up a new OS and throw away 10 years of work and then have that new OS lose half the features of the previous version. Does this happen with Windows? No. This is is Microsoft we're talking about.

I'd say that would certainly weighs-in on console design the same way Nintendo values hardware BC. My personal expectation is for it to share the Win8 kernel which would throw away the 360 OS but would build on a wider and and cross compatible platform. They have an advantage of having huge dedicated OS teams with years of experience no doubt.

 

[Aquamarine]

I don't see how we can possibly be playing the same system.

The convenience of this OS is far beyond anything I've experienced with a game console. Being able to tap the home button and pull up a fast, tabbed web browser on the touchscreen at any time (even when playing a retail games!)--as well as access the Miiverse and everything else--is just perfect. The overall use of 2 screens throughout the main OS areas is fantastic and streamlined.

I'd be interested in precise complaints if you have any.

I particularly love the ability to turn on the TV / change inputs and channels straight from the Wii U Gamepad. It's so simple but it's such a nice OS feature.

 

[hachi]

Where are the load times? I haven't encountered them.

3-ish seconds to return to the menu from a retail game. That's not slow; the browser, eShop, Miiverse, and everything else have come up with almost zero delay when I click the icon. I keep wondering if some of you are having networking problems.

Now, switching apps isn't as fast as my iPad3, but it's far more convenient and quick than any game system.

 

[Skellig Gra]

Where are the load times? I haven't encountered them.

3-ish seconds to return to the menu from a retail game. That's not slow; the browser, eShop, Miiverse, and everything else have come up with almost zero delay when I click the icon. I keep wondering if some of you are having networking problems.

You are definitely an exception to the rule. The one in particular I found annoying was coming in and out of the settings.

 

[hachi]

You are definitely an exception to the rule.

How long are we talking about? And between which apps or games? I'd like to try and replicate the exact scenario later.

EDIT: settings, hm, I haven't been in and out of that but maybe once. I do switch between the browser, shop, and other parts I mentioned frequently though.

 

[Twilight Princess]

nintendo fans prefer it medium rare.

 

[Skellig Gra]

How long are we talking about? And between which apps or games? I'd like to try and replicate the exact scenario later.

EDIT: settings, hm, I haven't been in and out of that but maybe once. I do switch between the browser, shop, and other parts I mentioned frequently though.

I didn't time it (I will when I get home from work). At least 5 seconds. Another place I noticed this was going in and out of notification center.

 

[Twilight Princess]

settings and wiiu voice chat are excruciatingly slow, miiverse, friendlist, download manager, browser are pretty fast, 5 seconds top.

 

[shuri]

It's very worrying that Nintendo hasn't made any kind of celebratory press release about the WiiU and its sales numbers. Maybe they are waiting a couple of days?

 

[PetriP-TNT]

Moreover, some bad architectural decisions have haunted those consoles for their entire lives. PSN has been an albatross around Sony's neck. The PS3 still doesn't support multiple profiles being signed in at once, it still has an inadequate messaging system, it was never possible to double back and patch major titles from the system's first year for trophies, there are still a dearth of demos on PSN, cross-game voice chat still doesn't exist, game patches are still enormous, most retail games still require partial installs, full installs are still impossible... and this is despite Sony really making an enormous effort to rapidly get PSN up to snuff, which they largely have.

I thought you can sign in with multiple accounts, what do you mean by that. Why would you want to have multiple accounts signed in at once outside of games anyway.

 

[Bruno MB]

So far this is the complete list of Nintendo developed games for Wii U:

Game & Wario (Intelligent Systems)
New Super Mario Bros. U (Nintendo EAD)
Nintendo Land (Nintendo EAD)
Pikmin 3 (Nintendo EAD)
Super Smash Bros. (Sora Ltd. and Namco Bandai)
Wii Fit U (Nintendo EAD)

That's extremely weak for Nintendo's standards.

For comparison's sake, before the Wii launch Nintendo had already announced Super Mario Galaxy, Wii Sports, Wii Play, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 3, Excite Truck, Wario Ware, Mario Strikers Charged Football, Super Smash Bros Brawl, Super Paper Mario and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn.

 

[Mileena]

Game Party Champions, Tank Tank Tank! (only available in arcade previously), Rabbids Land, and SiNG Party! are also exclusives to the Wii U system.

And here I was thinking it had no game.

 

[noobasuar]

lets face it, Nintendo makes some of the best games in the industry so as long as they keep putting out some of the top games in this industry none of these problems are gonna mean shit in the long run.

As a gamer the games will always be the main reason why I will either purchase or not purchase a console and for Nintendo hardware that's an easy choice for me. Let me know when the other platform holders are able to make platformers that match up to something that Nintendo makes.

 

[hoverboarder]

While I had a problem with the huge update download, overall I am really enjoying my purchase.

However, it is very slow to load between apps. 10-15 seconds of waiting between apps, and when you don't know how to use the OS yet, there's a lot of looking around and waiting.

ZombiU is so much fun though! Nintendoland was cute so far, and haven't even had time for NSMBU yet.

 

[TheGreatDivide]

They had a 1GB OS update day one with more planned in December. All of Nintendo's games have had title updates for Miiverse. It's clear that they plan to make more improvements, even with Wii it was Iwata's stated goal to speed things up and they did over time. They've definitely been devoting more resources to it and especially now that the systems are built with that in mind.

I wouldn't count basic features that should have been finished long ago being added the day the system launch as evidence of them getting their shit together.

3DS didn't have basic shit in place day 1, the patch to add it didn't then open the floodgates.

 

[SolarPowered]

It's very worrying that Nintendo hasn't made any kind of celebratory press release about the WiiU and its sales numbers. Maybe they are waiting a couple of days?

It has only been one day.

 

[faceless007]

An animator didn't create all the work that went into making the animations work. Those are the people I'm referring to. Those people need to be focused in much more needed areas. The OS is a nightmare.

...You think writing the code to play a pre-rendered movie file took away substantial time from the guys writing low-level OS code?

 

[Steve Youngblood]

I particularly love the ability to turn on the TV / change inputs and channels straight from the Wii U Gamepad. It's so simple but it's such a nice OS feature.

Yeah, it's pretty neat. However, I hope they still plan on fleshing it out just a tad more. Mind you, it's not necessarily reasonable to expect it, but I noticed yesterday that, unless there's some alternate way to access I'm not aware of, I have no means of accessing my recorded list for DirecTV. I'm not going to call that a strike against Nintendo. However, it would be nice if they added some of the functionality to control the DVR features of the satellite box, and not just the guide and channel changing.

 

[ThatObviousUser]

So far this is the complete list of Nintendo developed games for Wii U:

Game & Wario (Intelligent Systems)
New Super Mario Bros. U (Nintendo EAD)
Nintendo Land (Nintendo EAD)
Pikmin 3 (Nintendo EAD)
Super Smash Bros. (Sora Ltd. and Namco Bandai)
Wii Fit U (Nintendo EAD)

That's extremely weak for Nintendo's standards.

For comparison's sake, before the Wii launch Nintendo had already announced Super Mario Galaxy, Wii Sports, Wii Play, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 3, Excite Truck, Wario Ware, Mario Strikers Charged Football, Super Smash Bros Brawl, Super Paper Mario and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn.

Casualty of HD development and Nintendo's "announce nothing until 6 months before release" policy, I would guess.

 

[Nilaul]

Casualty of HD development and Nintendo's "announce nothing until 6 months before release" policy, I would guess.

I think thats better, more surprises, less waiting.

 

[electroshockwave]

I thought you can sign in with multiple accounts, what do you mean by that. Why would you want to have multiple accounts signed in at once outside of games anyway.

Was going to correct Stump on that bit too. But there is one thing that annoys me with profiles on the PS3 compared to the 360 and it's that you have to quit the game to sign out and sign into a different profile. I'm guessing you have to do the same thing on the Wii U?

 

[Kabuki Waq]

Here is the thing. Unfortunately for the past Decade nintendo consoles have been bought to play nintendo games. Even since Gamecube 3rd party support has been crap. There is nothing new here. I got the system because i want to play Smash, Mario and Zelda in HD.

The only thing that can fuck this up is if the launch numbers suck and this system goes the way of the Virtua Boy.

If it does bomb it will be Nintendo's own damn fault for cheaping out on the hardware and crappy OS.

 

[Father_Brain]

So far this is the complete list of Nintendo developed games for Wii U:

Game & Wario (Intelligent Systems)
New Super Mario Bros. U (Nintendo EAD)
Nintendo Land (Nintendo EAD)
Pikmin 3 (Nintendo EAD)
Super Smash Bros. (Sora Ltd. and Namco Bandai)
Wii Fit U (Nintendo EAD)

That's extremely weak for Nintendo's standards.

For comparison's sake, before the Wii launch Nintendo had already announced Super Mario Galaxy, Wii Sports, Wii Play, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 3, Excite Truck, Wario Ware, Mario Strikers Charged Football, Super Smash Bros Brawl, Super Paper Mario and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn.

Not a fair comparison, given that Wii U is the first system for which Nintendo has implemented a policy of (with a handful of exceptions) only announcing games due within four and a half months of launch, until... sometime in December or January, maybe? It's utterly asinine, but it is what it is.

Also, not that it would completely change the picture, but if you're including Wii titles developed by third parties (Strikers, Excite Truck), you should also include The Wonderful 101, Bayonetta 2, Sing Party, and Lego City Undercover.

 

[RedSwirl]

So far this is the complete list of Nintendo developed games for Wii U:

Game & Wario (Intelligent Systems)
New Super Mario Bros. U (Nintendo EAD)
Nintendo Land (Nintendo EAD)
Pikmin 3 (Nintendo EAD)
Super Smash Bros. (Sora Ltd. and Namco Bandai)
Wii Fit U (Nintendo EAD)

That's extremely weak for Nintendo's standards.

For comparison's sake, before the Wii launch Nintendo had already announced Super Mario Galaxy, Wii Sports, Wii Play, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 3, Excite Truck, Wario Ware, Mario Strikers Charged Football, Super Smash Bros Brawl, Super Paper Mario and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn.

Look at the release dates of those games though.

The Wii launched in 2006, and half the Wii games you mentioned didn't come out until fall 2007 or later - 12+ months after launch. ALL of the Wii U games mentioned there are currently scheduled to release before April 2013. Nintendo has stayed tight-lipped on pretty much ANYTHING they're doing after that. Ever since the later Wii years they've had the policy of not even revealing games until they're six months away from launch. For the first two quarters, this is looking like extremely good first party support.

 

[Doug Heffernan]

Maybe Retro can fix it?

Spoiler

trollface.jpg

 

[Brainiac 8]

It's like people forget that all console launches are rushed a bit and are borked in some way at the start.

 

[evilromero]

How are the games? I mean the exclusive games.

Nintendoland is surprisingly good and has some innovative ways to use the Wiipad. New Mario U is basically New Mario Wii, only in HD, which doesn't look all that different to me. It's well made though.

 

[big_erk]

it definitely sport some nice new features not present on other platforms, but it takes fooooreeeeever to get to them

I'm liking the system so far, but damn, those loading times. Hopefully a fix is incoming.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

Nintendoland is surprisingly good and has some innovative ways to use the Wiipad. New Mario U is basically New Mario Wii, only in HD, which doesn't look all that different to me. It's well made though.

It looks way better to me. But I mainly say that because the 480p SD output on the Wii looks awful on my TV. Asset-wise I can't say it blows New Super Mario Bros. Wii away or anything.

 

[Raptomex]

Yeah I've had a few of the issues mentioned but it's launch so I don't expect anything perfect.

 

[netBuff]

It's like people forget that all console launches are rushed a bit and are borked in some way at the start.

Nintendo fucked up quite a bit with this launch, many essentials people have come to expect from a current gen system are missing. And going into details, the situation is even worse: Just think of the myriad of small issues like the lack of Full Range HDMI colour support, or Cinch audio.

Just because other launches have been "borked" as well, why should we excuse Nintendo for another launch with huge problems?

 

[Hale-XF11]

None of this surprises me, considering I had more issues with my Wii than any video game system I ever owned since the NES days. Then when you look at how the 3DS was released and all the features that people were looking forward to were not there on day one, I get the sense that Nintendo's philosophy is "release now, fix it later on at some undetermined time...maybe."

 

[BocoDragon]

None of this surprises me, considering I had more issues with my Wii than any video game system I ever owned since the NES days. Then when you look at how the 3DS was released and all the features that people were looking forward to were not there on day one, I get the sense that Nintendo's philosophy is "release now, fix it later on at some undetermined time...maybe."

That's not untrue. But that's the philosophy of all the console makers at this point.

 

[netBuff]

That's not untrue. But that's the philosophy of all the console makers at this point.

Do you have any evidence of that? The Vita seemed very functional and snappy on day one, as did the Slim versions of PS3 as well as Xbox 360.

Do you honestly expect the world's biggest and most successful software company (Microsoft) to skimp on the essentials of their next generation consoles software side?

 

[A Human Becoming]

Do you have any evidence of that? The Vita seemed very functional and snappy on day one, as did the Slim versions of PS3 as well as Xbox 360.

Not a fair comparison. A hardware rendition is not the same as completely new hardware.

 

[Amir0x]

hoof, wow a lot has happened since Wii U has launched. I miss all the fun. Thankfully got home a little early today and can comment before I head back out.

I think all the OS problems are amusing considering the debate I was engaged in only a week or so ago wherein people told me the reason Nintendo was being so secretive is because they have a "big secret" in their OS they didn't want their competitors to know about and that, of course, it's totally natural they would have the superior OS, why am I being so pessimistic, nyah!

Focus on cuteness over functionality leads to this sort of thing, naturally. But what also leads to this sort of thing is being nearly a full decade behind your competitors. Nintendo isn't in the weeds for these sort of things like its competitors are, they'd have their pulse closer to the heart of functional OS design than Nintendo would - and even Microsoft's OS is a bloated overdesigned wreck that is far too slow for its own good.

But man that seems like THE FUTURE compared to the ninety trillion seconds in takes to load any option from the Wii U Hub Menu, eh. But the Mii's! And comically overpoliced messages! Yaaay! Good times, good times.

 

[Brainiac 8]

Nintendo fucked up quite a bit with this launch, many essentials people have come to expect from a current gen system are missing. And going into details, the situation is even worse: Just think of the myriad of small issues like the lack of Full Range HDMI colour support, or Cinch audio.

Just because other launches have been "borked" as well, why should we excuse Nintendo for another launch with huge problems?

Not excuse...but like with all companies, I think they should be given more than one day to fix some of the problems.

 

[Tom_Cody]

Nintendo fucked up quite a bit with this launch, many essentials people have come to expect from a current gen system are missing.

Just because other launches have been "borked" as well, why should we excuse Nintendo for another launch with huge problems?

The Xbox 360 launch was marked by the RROD which resulted in Microsoft writing off $1 billion.

The PS3 launch (and its 599 USD price point) was such a failure that it permanently displaced Sony's standing in the video game industry.

Let's try to keep things in prospective here.