With the Wii U eShop announced to be closing in March of 2023, it seemed fitting to have a look back at the console. However, to talk about the Wii U, we first need to talk about the Wii.

.

How Did Wii Get Here?

With the success of the Wii, Nintendo found itself in a very unusual place in the market. Nintendo was no stranger to dominating the handheld market with underpowered hardware compared to its competitors – Nintendo’s Game Boy trounced Sega’s more powerful Game Gear, the Nintendo DS demolished the technically-superior PlayStation Portable, and after a rocky start Nintendo’s 3DS would be the clear victor against the PlayStation Vita. Likewise, Nintendo was no stranger to being a market leader in the console market, with both the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Nintendo Entertainment System both marking Nintendo as the market leader.

However, after the lukewarm success of the Nintendo 64 and GameCube resulted in years of Nintendo being delegated to second or third place in a three-man race in the console market, Nintendo managed to find a winning formula in the console market not by striving for technical superiority, but by making an appeal to “casual gamers” with its low price compared to other consoles, its motion controls, and a lineup filled with simple games that would appeal even to people who didn’t normally consider themselves gamers. It was a common story that the Wii would be played by grandma, who would otherwise never touch a videogame controller.

For more traditional gamers, the Wii was a bit of a mixed story. To be fair, the Wii received its fair share of games that absolutely delighted this audience, phenomenal games like Super Mario Galaxy (and later its sequel), Metroid Prime 3, and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. But at the same time, these “core gamers” quickly grew disillusioned with the core concept of the Wii. Third parties saw the success of the platform and leaped at the opportunity to release games for it… but often these would be low-effort affairs intended to cash in on the gimmick of motion controls. Some games seemed to have motion controls added needlessly. Players bemoaned “waggle” in games that added nothing to the experience and only seemed to be tossed in because it was expected of Wii games. What’s more, these traditional gamers felt like Nintendo may have catered too much to “the casuals”, releasing embarrassingly bad “casual”-friendly games like Wii Music while classic franchises like F-Zero were skipped over entirely.

By the time the Wii’s star was fading, many of these same gamers would have a sour taste left in their mouth from the Wii, a sour taste amplified by the “me too” efforts of Microsoft and Sony, each implementing their own trend-chasing motion-sensing add-on to their console. What’s more, by this point the novelty of the Wii had largely worn off for the casual audience that made it such a rousing success, with many of these casual gamers moving to play games on smartphones and tablets.

.

Wii Begin Again

You can almost picture the discussion that must have taken place in a Nintendo board room where the Wii U was conceived. Their next console would evoke the Wii, of course – it would be foolish not to do so after the Wii’s massive success. And with tablet devices growing in popularity, Nintendo undoubtedly thought they may find success in evoking the look and feel of a tablet with its new console. In addition, perhaps this time they could make a real push to bring over multiplatform games that appealed more to the core gamers that felt somewhat abandoned by the Wii. And of course, they would have improved hardware that would be more on par with the current generation of consoles.

What’s more, in designing a platform that had a tablet controller, they could build on areas that they had already found some success in – by having two screens, they could evoke the same sort of experience found in their successful Nintendo DS handheld. And giving one player their own screen in multiplayer games could make for a thrilling asymmetrical multiplayer experience that they had already seen put to good use in a few GameCube games that used the Game Boy Advance link cable, games like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and Pac-Man Vs.

All of these were, at least in theory, very sound ideas. Whatever else you can say about the Wii U, it was not a console that was designed without a lot of thought put into it. Unfortunately, we can now see in retrospect that there was a distinct lack of thought put into some other very key areas, that would ultimately lead to disaster.

.

U Are the Weakest Link

While the idea to tie the Wii U to its successful predecessor seems like a great idea, the name of Wii U was an absolutely atrocious choice, and not just because it’s nonsensical. After all, “Wii” is pretty nonsensical, and that worked fine. No, the problem was that after years of Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Wii Play, Wii Music, and other similarly-named titles, Nintendo had trained their consumer base to see a product with the word “Wii” in it as something for the Wii. The name “Wii U” didn’t parse to people as “the successor to the Wii”, but rather as “yet another add-on for the Wii”, and seeing the tablet on the packaging seemed to confirm that – “oh, this is just another accessory like the Wii Fit board… and an expensive one too! No way am I spending $300 to play one game!”

The tablet itself was another problem. Many gamers saw this as an unnecessary expense that no doubt contributed needlessly to the price tag, much the same way they felt about the Kinect motion-control device Microsoft intended to pack in with each upcoming Xbox One console (a plan Microsoft later backed down on when gamers revolted en masse). And while the value of the Wii’s motion controls were obvious to anyone who got their hands on a Wii remote and played Wii Sports, the utility of the tablet controller was far less obvious – few games seemed to be using it for anything truly necessary to play the game in question, and most games that were designed to require its use seemed gimmicky or just plain not fun to play. There was also the inevitable disappointment when players envisioned a game console they could take on the go… only to discover that the Wii U tablet was wirelessly tethered to your TV, and would be useless once it got out of range of the device that was connected to your TV.

The outreach to third-party developers, while well-meaning, was similarly flawed. Companies like Electronic Arts, Activision, and UbiSoft supported the platform with major games like Mass Effect 3, Call of Duty, and Assassin’s Creed. Unfortunately, many of these games had already been out on competing platforms for years, and adding in a few unique Wii U features didn’t convince gamers to buy them again. It also bears mention that the Wii U got Mass Effect 3… but not the first two games in the series, Assassin’s Creed III… but not the prior games in the series, Ninja Gaiden 3… but not the first two games in the series. For players who hadn’t bought other consoles that received these games, the prospect of only getting the third games in these trilogies undoubtedly felt lacking.

The idea to design a platform that looked like a tablet to try and attract some of the rising popularity of tablets was also fundamentally flawed. Casual gamers were gravitating to tablets and smartphones for their gaming because these were devices they already owned that also happened to support games, not because the idea of playing on a handheld rectangular screen held some sort of appeal to this audience.

.

Y U No Have Gud Games?

In retrospect, the Wii U was unfortunately cursed on a conceptual level, its very idea flawed. But even this was not the full extent of its failure. Nintendo failed to properly support the platform with the sort of must-have games that made players feel a need to get a Nintendo console. It never received a 3D Mario game with the sort of scope of Super Mario Galaxy – its only 3D Mario game, Super Mario 3D World, felt so much smaller in scope than what had come before. Its only exclusive Zelda game, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, would only see release when the Wii U was already effectively dead. This game would come to be better-known for its release on the Nintendo Switch.

So many classic Nintendo franchises skipped the Wii U entirely. It never received a Metroid game. It never received an F-Zero game. It never received a Fire Emblem game. It never received a mainline Pokemon game. It never received a traditional Kirby Platformer. It never received a Punch-Out!! game. It never received an Advance Wars game.

What’s more, other franchises would only appear on the console in the form of a massive disappointment – Star Fox Zero is generally regarded as the worst game in the franchise, one that forces players to use the tablet controller in awkward and frustrating ways. Paper Mario: Color Splash is similarly seen as one of the worst games in that franchise. And Animal Crossing wouldn’t have a traditional series entry on the Wii U, instead only appearing as the social networking app Animal Crossing Plaza, and the dismal Party Game Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival.

For the first time since the Nintendo 64 era, Nintendo fans found themselves facing months without a significant release in the console’s lineup. Third parties who took a chance on a Nintendo platform for the first time found themselves feeling burned by the experience, with some still to this day hesitant to give the same sort of support to a Nintendo platform – five years of outstanding success in, and the Nintendo Switch still hasn’t seen a single Call of Duty game, a Batman Arkham game, or a Mass Effect game. And of course, gamers also felt burned by the Wii U, with many seeing the console in the same light as Nintendo’s other great failure, the Virtual Boy. For many, this will be seen as the Wii U’s legacy, another “Virtual Boy”-esque blunder.

.

Can U Redeem Yourself?

Only… that’s not entirely fair. And not just because comparing the Wii U to a game system that only ever received 22 games is absurd.

To be sure, the Wii U was a huge failure for Nintendo, and many gamers rightfully see it as a massive disappointment. Personally, I’m on the same page there – I too felt burned by the Wii U. But while I recognize the Wii U as a failure and a disappointment, I also recognize that it did some things very right, and in many ways the Wii U doesn’t get enough credit.

The Wii U had full backwards-compatibility with the original Wii. Gamers who owned a Wii didn’t need to buy a single new controller, and could play all their old games on the Wii U (GameCube games and GameCube controllers notwithstanding). What’s more, in an extremely consumer-friendly move, Nintendo extended that backwards-compatibility to all of the “WiiWare” digital games as well – the Wii U included a full emulated Wii interface, and players could even carry over their entire Wii digital library to the Wii U. Even the Xbox Series X, which has been celebrated for its backwards-compatibility, doesn’t work with the entire game library of the Xbox One, and of course the Nintendo Switch’s backwards-compatibility is nonexistent. This backwards-compatibility also extended to the emulated Virtual Console library of games, though players wanting to play them outside the emulated Wii interface would need to pay a small upgrade fee for the convenience of doing so.

And while some game franchises missed the Wii U or had disappointing entries in the series, others flourished on the platform, and in fact many great Nintendo Switch games started out on the Wii U. Mario Kart 8 is arguably the best game in the series, and was apparently such an outstanding game that it has become the best-selling game on two Nintendo platforms, with the improved Nintendo Switch port of the game still featuring in top ten sales lists eight years after its initial launch. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild may have been too late to save the Wii U, but it has nevertheless been celebrated as one of the greatest games of all time, even if it is better known as a Nintendo Switch game than a Wii U game. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is absolutely outstanding, possibly the best game in that franchise.

Other excellent games that started out on the Wii U have helped to fill out a Nintendo Switch lineup that would have been a lot more barren without them. Super Mario 3D World may not have been the Super Mario Galaxy sequel people wanted, but it has come to be better-appreciated for what it is on the Nintendo Switch. New Super Mario Bros. U was perhaps an uninspired entry in the franchise, but it was still an excellent game. Pikmin 3, Bayonetta 2, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Tokyo Mirage Sessions, Pokken Tournament, Hyrule Warriors… without ports of these excellent Wii U games, the Nintendo Switch’s game lineup may have been just as depressing as… well, the Wii U’s game lineup was.

There are other game franchises that began their life on the Wii U, that are still fondly remembered today. The biggest is of course Splatoon, which was excellent on the Wii U, and went on to see a great sequel on the Nintendo Switch (with another sequel due out later this year). Super Mario Maker was another game that sparked the imaginations of gamers around the world, and its spirit lives on in its Nintendo Switch sequel.

A few great Nintendo Switch games would go on to get their second chance on the 3DS, such as Yoshi’s Woolly World, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, and the NES Remix games. The Wii U versions of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess are generally considered to be the definitive versions of those two games. Super Smash Bros. For the Wii U was a superb entry in that franchise that added multiple great characters and new features, and fixed a few problems of the previous entry in the series.

There are even a select few truly great games that have yet to make it off of the Wii U platform. Xenoblade Chronicles X, a unique entry in the epic RPG series that’s completely separate from the numbered trilogy (at least as far as we know). Pushmo World is an outstanding entry in Nintendo’s Puzzle-Platformer series. Nintendoland will likely never be ported off of the Wii U because its gameplay is so directly died to the Wii U’s tablet controller. And even some games that managed to receive ports off of the Wii U like The Wonderful 101 are arguably best on the Wii U.

And for what it’s worth, the Wii U laid the groundwork for the Nintendo Switch’s success in more ways than just providing it with a ready-made library of games to port over. The impression that many players got of the Wii being a hybrid console and portable game system, an impression that would only lead to disappointment in the Wii U, would come to form the basis of the concept of the Nintendo Switch.

The strong indie support Nintendo fostered with the WiiWare service and built up further with the Wii U would become what is arguably one of the pillars of quality games that the Nintendo Switch was known for, with indie game support that has been nothing short of phenomenal. And the Wii U showed signs of Nintendo’s first notion of combining its console and handheld development efforts into one, with games released on both platforms like Mario Vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars, and the aforementioned Yoshi’s Woolly World, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, the NES Remix games, and Hyrule Warriors.

.

U Win Some, U Lose Some…

I know there are a good number of gamers out there who outright despise the Wii U, and it’s not hard to see why. It represents the culmination of all of the problems of the Wii era without many of the Wii’s redeeming qualities. It burned gamers and publishers, who both found themselves disappointed with what the Wii U ultimately had to offer. And yet, despite this, the Wii U nevertheless still holds some value, both for some of the quality games that were created for the platform (and in some cases are still only available on that platform), and for providing a stepping stone for the Nintendo Switch to build on. Without the Wii U, the Nintendo Switch may not even exist. Or maybe it would, I don’t know, I can’t see into alternate realities.

In any case, the point is, for all its failure and disappointment, there was still some good in the Wii U, and with its era finally coming to a concrete end within the next year or so, it seems fitting to see it both for the good and the bad it represented.

^{You can now support this subreddit on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are MB, Andy Miller, Johannes, u/RamboFox, Exlene, Eli Goodman, Ilya Zverev, Stov, Connor Armstrong, and K.H. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}