Ten Reasons I Did Not and Will Not Sell My Wii U

The Wii U is awful. The Wii U has obsolete technology. I didn't think it was physically possible, but the Wii U sucks and blows. We've all heard it. The criticism does have a little merit too. I have owned the Wii U since 8:05am on November 18, 2012. I was super excited to get it. I was ready to play Nintendo Land and Mario U. Since then, however, I've only purchased 2 other games. That's a slow start for a system that's been alive for 7 months. So why didn't I just sell the thing off and focus on the PS3 and upcoming PS4? I'll tell you why. I'll give you 10 reasons why.

Reason #1 - First Party Games
I was given the original Wii for Christmas of 2010. Just two years from its predecessor's release. I found out that there were tons of games out there for the system and that there was plenty to choose from. Something began to click though, of the 14 games I own for the Wii, only 3 of them are 3rd party. Nintendo knows games. They usually don't put out garbage, except for some Pokemon titles. Not only that, but the replayability is HUGE. Comparing apples to apples, Wii games vs PS3 games, the replayability of the Wii games outnumber the PS3 games 2 to 1. I understand that Nintendo must take time to push out quality titles. Therefore I was prepared to wait for them. I mean, who buys a Nintendo system to play Assassin's Creed? Then again, I'm a big proponent of having a Nintendo system and one of the other big 3 to round things out.

Reason #2 - Backward Compatibility
This is something Nintendo can boast over the other two competing companies. Their system will, and does play Wii games. As a matter of fact, this reason was the deciding point for me to go ahead and become a first day buyer. As I mentioned before this is one of the very few weaknesses of the PS4 and one of the one million weaknesses for the Xbox. I think Nintendo should promote this fact alone much stronger. Who knows, it might push a few consoles.

I couldn't revisit my old friends without backwards compatibility

Reason #3 - Earthbound
The fact that Earthbound is coming out on the VC has and will sell consoles. As kids often do, old consoles and games get lent out or flat out taken or trashed without even realizing that one day you will regret it. If I wasn't a Wii U owner, I would've bought one on this fact alone. I am also very interested to see this new generation of young gamers out there get introduced to such a great old school game.

Reason #4 - The Virtual Console
For reasons mentioned above in #3 it's nice to be able to play some of those old games on the Wii U. When dodging Piston Honda in Punch Out (now without Mike Tyson) it always brings me back to a safer time.

Reason #5 - Off TV Play
This was a genius idea brought forth by Nintendo. The only problem with it is that no one really can understand it unless you actually go to Best Buy or somewhere else and see for yourself. Once you have it, you'll find yourself using it more and more. I mean come on, you can continue your game while the others in the house watch TV.....simply genius and very underrated.

Reason #6 - Miiverse
I wrote an article on the now defunct Bowser's Blog (currently Gaikoku Gamers) about Miiverse. It is quite an interesting part of the gaming experience. Immediately upon starting up your Wii U system you'll be introduced to Miiverse and some of the coolness (forgive the colloquial term) it brings to the table. You can ask for help, brag to your friends or complete strangers, or just carry on conversations with different people from around the world. Aside from dealing with the overbearing omnipresent Miiverse Police, it is one of the best innovations in the gaming world to date.

Reason #7 - The Nostalgia of the Nintendo World
I was introduced to Nintendo in 1989 when my oldest brother got a NES for Christmas. There's always something about Nintendo that any old school gamer loves. It's the memories of our childhood days. It's the frustration of extremely hard games like Ghosts n Goblins and boxing against Mike Tyson in Punch Out. I still remember the code to get to fight Tyson 007-373-5963 and the Contra Code (which is used in Wreck It Ralph by the way). I remember being in awe of the backgrounds on the SNES. There's something about Nintendo. There's something about Mario, Yoshi, Kirby, Link and Zelda. They are old friends who are always welcome in our houses. We trust them and they can only be found in one place.

Reason #8 - Trust in Nintendo
I've already mentioned this before, but this is a different aspect of the first reason. You can always count on Nintendo to give you great games and high replayability. Nothing feels worse than reading rave reviews about a game, then dropping down 60 bucks to get it, then finding out that it isn't one that fits your style. Instead of doing the whole eBay/Gamestop buying trading selling stuff, we know that we will not only like the games they bring to us, we know we'll want to play them over and over. That's trust my friend.

Reason #9 - It Is NOT an Xbox
Backwards compatible, No need for online connectivity, when you buy the games it is considered your property (trade, sell, lend), and no spying through a camera. The Wii U might not make sense to the "true next-gen" gamers, but right now it makes more sense than throwing down 500 bucks + tax for the Xbox one....or three....or whatever.

Reason #10 - It Is Already Purchased
This is a weak reason, that's why it's last. But the money I dropped for the Wii U is gone. I don't feel like getting a percentage of what I paid for it in November. The money is gone. I researched my purchase beforehand, and quite frankly, besides the delays of Pikmin and Rayman, I expected what most are complaining about.

Well there you have it. Some reasons better than others, I'll admit. Maybe some of you agree with me, while others either passed on the Wii U or sold yours because of some of the very reasons why I kept it. I'd love to hear from you if you agree or disagree. Thanks for reading.

Obligatory E3 Post - The PS4 domination

I was out of the US last week and so I was unable to watch the E3 conference like I did last year. So I had to check it out whenever I got home yesterday. I'll be honest, I've already decided I'll never get the Xbox One. I don't know what the heck they were thinking. Me, used games, and eBay go together like the ice cream, cone, and chocolate of a Dairy Queen dipcone. When you remove that option for me, I'll remove the option of you from my pocket book. So I'll just talk about the two that I do and will own - PS4 and Wii U.

Wii U
I'll be honest. I love Nintendo. I really love Nintendo. The nostalgia of Nintendo and the childhood memories of safer times puts Nintendo in a very special place in my heart. No matter how behind Nintendo is with their technology, I'll always have space on my "media center" for Nintendo. That being said, I'll be honest again. I didn't watch their Nintendo Directs. I don't plan to watch them either. Instead I just watched a 10 minute recap of their E3 Directs. I didn't want to spend a few hours with Reggie stumbling through these.

Please tell me this is funner than it looks

Mario Kart 8 looks to be a solid title. They didn't reinvent the wheel, but at the same time, they've added new ways to play the game. It will be an addition to my game library whenever it comes out. Super Mario 3D World was a little disappointing. It seriously looks like the 3DS game that was lazily converted to HD. I don't really care about multi-player. Wow! It's cat Mario - Big deal..... The thing that really disappoints me about this game is the time clock. The thing that made Super Mario Galaxy so awesome was you could enjoy the game without any time restrictions. I'd much rather have a Galaxy 3 instead of this game. However, no matter how disappointing this may be on the surface, you can always count on Mario to give you a fun game. It will be added to my library. As far as Pikmin 3 goes, that should've been on my shelf in April this year. It'll find its way on my shelf when it does come out this year. They had other games, but I'll keep this short. Notably absent was any word on the Earthbound VC release. They could've taken the ball and ran with it and done something special for us. I imagine something might could happen on the horizon for Earthbound's release. We'll see. Also, a Wii U Zelda teaser was absent. They did mention it in interviews talking about the art style of it. I hope they don't get too radical. I've become quite attached to the current version of the characters.

PS4

She's a beauty

I watched the E3 conference from Sony on my PS Vita last night. All I can say is they simply and decidedly won E3. Not only did they win it, they stepped on the competition's throats and didn't lift their foot until they stopped squirming. They did with me exactly what they wanted to achieve whenever they stepped on the stage that night - they are convincing me to buying their system early. The more I hear about the PS4 the more I can see myself being a launch window (not necessarily launch day) owner. I've been trying to fight it, but I must admit, the battle is growing more and more futile. The games look great. The system isn't an ugly clunky piece of.....something. The price is spot-on for me. Their exclusives are 20 times better than those from Xbox. The only thing is, I wish they had game disk backward compatibility though. I've got about 400 bucks in games on the PS3. I don't want to eBay them off or trade them in to Gamestop for 6 bucks a piece. They do have the cloud thing, but I'm sure that comes for a nominal fee.

I really can appreciate Sony staring the competition in the face and reassuring the paying customer everything that Microsoft is doing wrong, Sony is going to do it right.

Whether you're a Nintendo, Sony or even an Xbox person there's one thing you can be sure of - This generation will not be the last. I look forward to the future. I look forward to getting lost in the games. After all, that's what this needs to be about. And that's exactly what each of these companies focused on during E3. Thanks for reading.

PS Cross Play - Where Have You Been My Whole Life?!?!

Coolness at its best

The gaming world, at least those who really keep up with it, will be overflowing with news and excitement as E3 will be going on this week. I for one will be out of the country this coming week, and since there will be 1,000 other blogs and sites out there giving the news, I will sit back and absorb it all. But before I go, I wanted to shoot out this quick observance to you good readers.

I recently bought an interesting game by the name of Guacamelee. I'm not going to get too much into it other than it is quite fun and very challenging. But one thing that really caught my attention was that whenever you purchase the game you are allowed 2 PS3 console downloads and 2 Vita console downloads with Cross Play capability. I'm not one who will spend 60 bucks on the PS3 version then put out another 40 for the Vita so I can continue my baseball game (or whatever). For me, you either include the Vita version as part of the package or I'll skip out on the extra feature. Anyways, I digress.

Let me tell you, Cross Play delivered. All you have to do is upload your save game data to the cloud and once you get started on the other console, you're ready to continue your game. How awesome is that? I knew about this technology and didn't quite understand why someone would throw down 100 bucks for 2 versions of these games, but I can see that if you're one of those intense hardcore gamers with a really good paycheck, how that would be an extra perk.

The future is bright for the Vita especially with Sony requiring off TV play for their games on the upcoming PS4. I think that with the Wii U going with the tablet controller, that Sony was happy to know their consoles were capable of achieving the same thing.

I'll definitely be looking for other Cross Play options. There's nothing like being able to play a game on the TV then know that when you're on the go, or if you simply want to kick back in the bed and play, that you'll have absolutely no problem doing so. If you have a Vita and PS3, I would recommend you download Guacamelee and give it a try.