Wii U retail impressions?

[Grall]

We've already sold 140 million HD console and 80 million Wiis. That's 220 million units, the largest ever for a console generation, and that's with the HD consoles maintaining a far higher price than previous generations.

Undoubtedly, that's largely because people who grew up during the NES era are now raising their own families and buying consoles for themselves and their kids, along with computer entertainment having spread from just geeks in the 80s to almost everyone today.

I remember Keifer Sutherland, around the time when he was a big star in "24" and had to appear skilled with computers once commenting in an interview something along the lines of having grown up when it was cool to NOT know how to use computers, so anything he did in the show was all acting...

 

[V3]

My local retailer finally had a Wii U setup, It's the white one. that Wii U controller is really nice to hold, I really like the feel of it.

360 or DS3 controller is just too narrow and small. The Wii U is a proper size controller for my hand. It's very light too for its size, almost felt cheap. Probably could do with a bigger battery to add some weight to it.

The unit itself is also very small. Too small IMO, should have made it bigger and put in more FLOPS performance under the hood.

Only got Rayman to play with. I wish they were more games. I wanted to buy one, but they're sold out of the Premium pack. Only basic pack, they say there will be more in the coming weeks. Actually they've been sold out of the Premium pack since launch, while they got lots of basic pack. So I guess I'll get it when they have more in stock. Probably going to get SMBU and Tekken Tag 2. The game lineup is pretty weak. Maybe I should wait a year, but that controller is really nice to hold. I'm quite envious of it.

 

[Rodéric]

Started playing ZombiU, it's interesting, not as good as Dark Souls from what I have played sofar (less than two hours though.)
Padlet battery life is about 4 hours, which is short IMO, I'm waiting for something to enhance that, and also something to turn the Padlet into an "FPS gun".
(I have power plugs close by so it's not a problem, but it's less convenient.)

I purchased Trine 2 on the Wii U to play with my wife.
I expect to purchase other games that are quick to pick up, fun to play and have a good rythm.
(Games must be picked up in < 20 minutes and provide fun in 20 minutes periods for me now.)

I'm looking forward to Monster Hunter, Pikmin, Zelda and Mario (3D).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

4 hours isn't as bad as it looked like it might be. That's enough between plays placing the Wuublet on the charger between times, although way too short for Nintendo's earlier ideas of using it around the house or as a TV remote etc. Is there a screen brightness control on the Wuublet?

 

[Rodéric]

4 hours isn't as bad as it looked like it might be. That's enough between plays placing the Wuublet on the charger between times, although way too short for Nintendo's earlier ideas of using it around the house or as a TV remote etc. Is there a screen brightness control on the Wuublet?

Yes there are 5 or 6 levels of brightness on the Padlet.
I left mine to maximum minus 1. When charging it automatically goes to max.

 

[Grall]

Where did you set the pad brightness? Can't find any option like that...

 

[Rodéric]

Where did you set the pad brightness? Can't find any option like that...

Click the Home button on the Wii U Gamepad, on the right "Controller Settings" button, click the Wii U Gamepad button, then choose brigtness (1-5), power saving and rumble.
You can even shut down the screen.

 

[Rodéric]

I did it with the dreamcast back in the days, so again with the Wii U, a post from the console.
Definetly much more convenient with a touchscreen ^^

(typing from the home office, a wall between the console and the padlet ^^)

 

[Entropy]

So, Grall, do you find it quiet enough?

 

[Rodéric]

So, Grall, do you find it quiet enough?

The console is very quiet, the optical drive is by far the noisiest part. (Nothing excessive though.)
I'm looking forward to purchasing downloadable copies of games I'm interested in to have a silent system and possibly shorter loadings. (Provided they are less expensive that getting them from Amazon and such.)

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Have any of you put HDDs on your Wuu's?

 

[Arwin]

I did it with the dreamcast back in the days, so again with the Wii U, a post from the console.
Definetly much more convenient with a touchscreen ^^

(typing from the home office, a wall between the console and the padlet ^^)

The bluetooth keyboard I use on the PS3 also works quite well with typing. Also gets a mousecursor ... can't see the screen through a wall though, but then I have a second PS3 in my 'office'.

Browser still could use an upgrade to something like the one on the Vita though.

Anyway, I can definitely see advantages to the Wii U's version of 'remote play'. At least that works with almost anything.

Of course I can also remote control the PS3's browser from anywhere I have internet with a PSP or a Vita, but that's pretty pointless, as the Vita's built in browser is far more convenient. It would be really great if Sony could get games to work with remote play a little better. It's clear though that they're working on something there (perhaps using Gaikai tech) but it may have to wait for PS4 ...

So Nintendo definitely did a good thing here, getting that to work. I think it's more valuable than people initially think.

 

[Rodéric]

Have any of you put HDDs on your Wuu's?

Not yet, likely in a couple months.

 

[Grall]

So, Grall, do you find it quiet enough?

Not really. The cooling fan is clearly audible (likely due to its small diameter, and thus needlessly high rate of spin), and the optical drive even more so. Loaded discs continue to spin even if the game isn't running, which is just unbelievably stupid. This was the number one thing that made me stop playing my 360 (way before MS made HDD installs possible), and here it is again with the wuu. Unbelievable!

 

[I.S.T.]

Yeah, that's a fucking stupendous way to kill both the disc and the disc drive.

To rip off an overused internet meme, NINTENDO, I AM DISAPPOINT

 

[BRiT]

At this point, there's really nothing Nintendo can do to surprise me at their new levels of fail.

 

[TheLump]

Have any of you put HDDs on your Wuu's?

Not yet. I've d/lded Trine 2, Nano Assault Neo, Might Switch Force, Puddle and a Fifa Demo and have a tiny bit over 20GB left on the Premium model.

Other notes...


Wii Transfer:
Wii Transfer, whilst seemingly 1 or 2 steps too long worked fine, pretty quick (minus me running upstairs to the Wii and back down to the WiiU to swap the SD card!!)

Battery Life of GamePad:
Around 4 hours. I've been using it whilst watching TV and flicking in and out of NSMBU with headphones (love this ) and also had a few extended plays on Trine and ZombiU. Seems consistently around 4 hours, lasting a bit longer with NSMBU. Not sure if its becuase it doesn't use any gyros or whatever?


O/S:
Besides the loooong loading time (10 - 15 secs) to get into the settings menu its fairly smooth. Still need speeding up though. Loading times into MiiVerse seem to have improved in the last couple of days aswell. I havn't had a crash/lockup/spaz-out yet - theres still time though!

Noise:
As other have mentioned, the disc spins up when in the drive regardless of when you're using it. Its not audible over the TV, but I still take discs out whne not using them out of habit so havn't found it to be a problem. Th machine itself is very quiet when playing a D/L game for example.

 

[Entropy]

Re:Noise

It's unfortunate that once cost-cutting is getting serious, noise is an aspect that is pretty much always taken from the list of priorities.
The WiiU has a large inherent advantage in its low power draw, making it unfortunate that it always spins the disc. OTOH it makes accesses faster (and it doesn't necessarily mean more wear to keep the disc spinning as opposed to the spinning the drive up repeatedly), and it may be that it's actually under application control, and Nintendo is only properly blamed for the behavior when in the OS.

Still - disappointing to someone like me, even though I couldn't actually hear it in a shop environment. In our quiet home it will be audible, and I dislike noisy AV equipment on general principle. Remains to be seen how Orbis/Durango does in this department. I have a feeling noise levels may not make it above "cutting costs" on their lists of priorities either.

Thanks for the input and opinions, guys.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

There's nothing wrong with keeping the disc spinning. Indeed I'd expect it for a game or film where the data is being constantly streamed. What's truly asinine is spinning the disk when it's not being used. Has any other console done that? Points to more rushing of the FW to me. Nintendo really did release this machine long before they were ready. A part of me wants it to crash and burn as a result, as a warning to other companies not to release unfinished products, but I fear we'll still be subjected to crap products forever more, especially when they can be fixed after sales via software. That option removes the risk of a totally broken product requiring recalls or abandoning.

 

[Grall]

There's nothing wrong with keeping the disc spinning.

Only if you re-define "nothing wrong" to ignore all noise, power concerns...

Indeed I'd expect it for a game or film where the data is being constantly streamed.

Most games probably don't stream anything at all, as it's a danged bother to stream stuff off of an optical disc. You'd only really need streaming for large roaming games anyway, most other titles would just load the entire level in one go, especially as wuu has 2GB^h^h^h 1GB of RAM to play with...

Like NSMBU for example, what need does that game have to keep the game disc going full tilt ALL the time? None. But I can't play the fucking game because of the constant hum from the drive!

What's truly asinine is spinning the disk when it's not being used. Has any other console done that?

360 did, early on at least. I didn't bother even powering up my 360 to play movies after I got a PS3 a year + change later though, so I don't know when exactly it got changed. Drove me nutters it did...