News of the discontinuation of the Wii U came as no surprise with all of the rumors circulating in the months building up to the announcement that Nintendo would cease production of the device. Ryan Griffiths from The Nerd Stash takes an inside look at the console's success and failures.
The name "Hewson" carries a special weight for anyone who grew up during the golden age of British computing. As the son of Andrew Hewson—the man behind legendary publisher Hewson Consultants—Rob Hewson didn't just grow up playing video games; he learned to spell his name from their title screens. However, Rob didn't just rest on his family's 8-bit laurels. From leading major LEGO franchises at TT Games to tackling the high-stakes world of technical porting at Huey Games, Rob has carved out a unique path in an ever-evolving industry. In this candid interview Rob to discussed the burden and beauty of a family legacy, the technical "scar tissue" left by the ambitious Hydrophobia, and why porting a masterpiece like Inscryption to consoles is far more than a simple copy-paste job.
NE: "We rank the 10 best main series Super Mario games in celebration of the recent MAR10 Day with 2D and 3D included."
Best 2D, Mario World, best 3D, Mario 64. Can't say there's been a bad one, although Mario World 2 wasn't a true sequel. The Mario Land games were good (not the first one) and also Wario Land. I thought after Mario 64, Mario 3D World was excellent.
Believe it not, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is almost ten years old. It was a massive game for many reasons – it launched alongside Nintendo Switch, was a new take for the series by going fully open-world, and introduced various aspects like voice acting in a mainline game for the characters.
I keep seeing articles about why the Wii U failed. Bad messaging. Poor announcement. The marketing wasn't good enough. But what I rarely see is that the system just wasn't what people wanted. Because it wasn't.
I own a Wii and love it. But I also moved away from the Wii because of all the things that it didn't offer, specifically the 3rd party support of major games. Yes, I love Mario games and Zelda games, but as I would eventually discover, I enjoy sports games and shooters and every other game maybe just a bit more. I enjoy having a device that I can use as a DVD player. Oh, and if it's also a blu-ray player all the better. And in the end, after seeing the Wii being abandoned by every publisher, I felt burned by the time the Wii U came out.
I sometimes feel like the smartest person on the planet because I keep seeing on game sites that when the Wii U was announced, nobody knew what it was. "Was it just a Wii accessory??" Well, I understood it from the beginning and all I could think was I didn't want to get burned again like I did with the Wii. Yes, Wii Sports was great but after that there was... nothing. So I had a Wii that went unused while there was a PS3 with great looking games coming out every week... plus it played cds, dvds, blu-rays, and everything else. It really did do everything. So when Wii U came out what could it replace? Well, nothing really. It provided Nintendo games, but that wasn't enough.
I have a Wii U, and I think the system struggled for the following reasons.
1. Too expensive, even during its later years. Wii Us in 2015 and even 2016, often cost more than vanilla PS4/ XB1 bundles
2. Lack of goodmarketing, few comericals and Nintendo's campaign against YouTubers didn't help.
3. Lack of multi media features and dated online.
4. Lack of 3rd party support
5. Most of the system selling 1st party titles were absent for most of the Wii U's lifespan.
It was a crappy console and Nintendo doesn't listen to the consumer. If the Wiiu.... or Switch, could play all 3rd party games the base Xbox One could, I wouldn't own an Xbox. It's simple. Stupidly simple. Make a strong console and make the gimmicks optional. Nintendo has the most recognizable franchise and they arrogantly believe that's all thats needed to run with Sony and MS. It's not.
So whatever happens beyond Switch.... just give us adults a console we can pick up and play game which has no wiggling, swiping, shaking, or other gimmicks. Then go out and spend some of those billions I keep hearing about and secure some 3rd party exclusives. Then maybe....just maybe you'll attract more than the die hard defenders who make up the majority of the 13m that bought a WiiU
because it was underpowered, lack of 3rd party, not robust enough online features... this is starting to sound really familiar.