The Besties - The Besties Podcast: Wii U special

Episode Date: September 14, 2012

Besties! Straight up: We didn't play anything this week. There. We said it. Also, Russ Frushtick is in Japan, so we thought that we'd talk about yesterday's big Wii U event where pricing, dates and much more was revealed. So, what'd we think? Well, you'll have to listen, it took us like a half hour to make. Straight up: We didn't play anything this week. There. We said it. Also, Russ Frushtick is in Japan, so we thought that we'd talk about yesterday's big Wii U event where pricing, dates and much more was revealed. So, what'd we think? Well, you'll have to listen, it took us like a half hour to make. Also, our boss, Chris Grant is there. In closing: Funky Barn. Music: "Little Marcus" by George & Jonathan Get the show: Download MP3" Subscribe to the podcast (RSS) Subscribe on iTunes Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

my name is Justin McElroy and I know the biggest story of the week. My name is... Wait, what? Yeah, nothing. I'm Griffin McElroy and today's gonna be different. My name is Chris Plant

and I'm not the only Chris on this podcast. Should I do it like Russ Freshstick? My name is Chris Grant and here's the thing we all know the same biggest story of the week so i don't i'm not sure how this is gonna work it's party barn for the wii u announced get ready prep it prep yourself prep your fam party bar exclusive it may not actually be called party barn i am am checking on that, though. Griffin, I do need you to confirm whether or not it's called Party Barn. So, no, we're, of course, talking about the Wii U announcement and all the news that came out this week about the Wii U.

Funky Barn. Funky Barn. Funky Barn. Funky Barn. Funky Barn. Funky Barn. the wii u price funky barn funky barn funky barn funky barn uh russ fresh dick is is in the land of the rising sun so he is not with us and none of us have played any games so we thought hey let's talk about this wii u stuff chris grant our expert expert expert analyst, I think is fair. Yeah, I think that's a good thing to call him. I feel like we all have games

but we can't talk about them. Yeah, I know. I'm playing Sherlock Holmes. So what's up? Griffin! Nice. Griffin. What's up? We can't keep bragging like this. Give us the dirt. What's the skinny on the Wii U bragging like this. Give us the dirt.

What's the skinny on the Wii U? Well, there was a saying yesterday where they talked to a bunch about the Wii U, and it was Nintendo who was talking about it. So I think it's fair to say they were pretty bullish on it. Back to you, Justin. No, they announced a date. It's coming to the United States of America onmber 18th uh you get the basic bundle for 299 dollars that's just the console with eight gigabytes of memory which uh is a joke um i'm

just saying can you say it costs 300 because yeah 299.99 rounding that down to $299, that doesn't make sense. It's $299.99. It's $299.99. And then, so that's the basic. You get some, I mean, you get the gamepad, you get HDMI cable, which is interesting. You don't get controllers. Retailers are crazy about that. No pro controller, but a pro controller didn't come in the other one. Or Wiimotes. And no Wiimotes either. No that. No pro controller, but a pro controller didn't come in the other one. The other one is the...

Or Wiimotes. And no Wiimotes either. No Wiimotes, yeah, but everybody has Wiimotes. Then there's the deluxe bundle, which is 50 bucks more. It's $349.99. You get a 32 gigabyte console, which is... You also get the... You get the gamepad.

uh you also get the you get the gamepad you get a gamepad charging cradle and you get access to the deluxe online promotion which i forget the name of which gives you a 10 rebate on all the digital titles that you uh purchase from the which seems like a crazy deal shop store yeah well it lasts you through 2014 so it's not a it's not eternal not permanent but you also get one other big thing with that with that $50 bonus you get mintembo land it's like it's like they said look for $300 we'll take a dump on your lawn yeah but for $350 we'll give you a video game console it doesn't it it doesn't make much sense because that it's crazy because nintendo land is assumedly, I don't know, they may not charge full price for it.

I think they would be, actually, I think they would be kind of crazy too. But retailers have it up for $59.99, which we also found out is the price of Wii U games. Right. What's funny about that? I just think everything about this is the craziest, the craziest thing. Everything about it is the craziest thing. So just to set the tone before we kick into stuff, to follow up on Justin's, was that a cackle?

Yeah. Was that a cackle? yeah was that a cackle um so uh chris plant and i the chrises were at um the event yesterday in manhattan uh and i i i would define the general tone of the event uh during nintendo's portion it was bullish the response um from the press uh and the rest of the people there that I got from talking to them was, I think, intense skepticism. I would disagree with you just from where I was on the home team. The mood was, well, that could have been much, much worse. I honestly, you know what? Actually, hey, other Chris, do you mind playing a game of Q&A with me?

Sure. Okay. First question. I'm just going to ask some basic things that I think we probably know. What does the Wii U's main menu look like? No comment, Chris. Okay. what does the Wii U's main menu look like? No comment, Chris. Okay, well, how much do those game pads,

how much do those cost, like if I wanted to get one right now? We haven't really made a decision yet, since there aren't any games that use it, even though we already made a decision in Japan, so no comment on that. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I mean, a lot of your games, they're going to connect to the internet, right? So how does online work?

I mean, online is a really huge part of our strategy with the Wii U. But no comment, we're not really ready to talk about it, even though we announced the launch date in terms of days, not weeks or months. It's literally in the days away, but we're not quite ready to talk about something that Microsoft pioneered on consoles uh eight years ago so this launch the launch window we can expect that to be you know like no more than two months right the launch window is actually between uh november 18th the launch date and the end of time it's a it's roughly 80 million years i i see so uh this the the digital pass you mentioned uh that comes with the deluxe

edition uh how do i buy that does that just go on forever uh well you see what is that digital purchases and being able to download games full games to your console is a huge part of the wii strategy which is why we start with a whopping eight gigabytes of storage built in and we want to use the store. Which by the way we're not really ready to talk about yet in any detail. Because the launch is 60 days away. We got a lot of time. Can I actually ask.

Do they know. Have they said if like my all the virtual console games. So they said out of Japan. They said that. But they did not talk about it yesterday at all. No they talked about it. You know when it yesterday at all. No, they talked about it. You know what it's going to be, right? They talked about it.

You know you're going to have to copy all of them to 17 floppy disks, and then you'll copy them over one time. You are goofing. I had to move stuff from my 3DS to my 3DS XL. I had to copy that stuff to my computer, transfer it from thing to thing. Then I had to take out my SD card, transfer all the stuff off the SD card from my 3DS onto my computer, and then transfer that onto the bigger SD card that comes with the 3DS XL, which worked maybe the 35th time that I tried it. No, I wasn't goofinging i was basing that on you you are goofing though because you are kind of assuming that of the 32 gigabytes because you're getting a deluxe model you have no choice

of those 32 gigabytes you will use 25 gigs to install one game because that's how big the discs are and then you'll use the remaining eight what, 8 gigs, 7 gigs, to install a third, a fourth of another game. Wait, what discs are they? It's a proprietary disc. I think it's Blu-ray tech, but not full, you know, Blu-ray. I mean, there's just like a lot of leftover questions. For example, it's an entertainment device now, right?

That's what they talked about. Does it play Blu-rays? Nope. Does it play DVDs? I mean, guys mean guys the last one you said it was it doesn't play dvds i don't think so i think and then we'll talk about last time it was a it was a gaming device so they had that excuse but now they're actually saying the third pillar is entertainment but it probably doesn't play dvds that's just weird there's just nothing about it that it what it reminds me of is like the a lot of the nintendo tv stuff where they were showing you in this really bizarre like we still don't understand like you're they were watching tv and i think it was live tv but they were talking

about like hulu and netflix and that kind stuff. But then they were showing on the game pad where you would like see reactions to what was happening on TV. And I honestly, I couldn't make heads or tails of it. That was my favorite part, because what I think they were alluding to is that there is some intern who has to watch all of the live. Every single thing. So guys, they screen cap it and they have to be like oh act two turn manny farted oh my family so ross at the verge ross at the verge you know he talked to the the co-founder of itv which is the company that that makes that software i think he put a report up but basically it's not, this isn't Wii U exclusive stuff. This is ITV.

It's an existing platform. I guess it's coming to more devices later. It's not exclusive to Wii U. And the interface even apparently looks like the existing ITV interface. It's an app that you can get on like your iPad and stuff. For our British listeners, I believe it is i.tv. It is not to be confused with iTV. Yeah, I actually have it.

I've used it for a long time because listings are pretty good. So it's not a... This isn't something Nintendo built in-house. Brian asked Zach Fountain, who was this entertainment guy that they brought up, about it.

He asked him a question like, does this use Nintendo Network or any kind of Nintendo Network? And he said, well, in so much as it's on Nintendo devices and anything by fact of being on Nintendo devices part of Nintendo's network, then yes. Oh, no, no, no. Even better. Part of their holistic internet-connected universe or something.

It was so open. It could basically mean that like you know because it exists online that is the nintendo network how can they keep how can they keep doing this how can they did this with the 3ds didn't the 3ds launched sans e-shop right am i am i tripping yeah no no no i'm that that sounds right i think that's gonna happen again i would not be surprised if the wii u launched with no online thing and they said you know screw it we'll add it in later which is which is banana cakes to me that's i don't know how they cannot well and it here's what okay here's what i and why i was laughing earlier about the game prices.

This is the thing that I keep getting hung up on and the thing that I find so mystifying about the Wii U experience. Setting the game pad aside for a second, which, I mean, let's be honest, the Vita has a lot of that functionality that we've seen so far and the you know microsoft has has talked about the same stuff um you know via xbox live and and smart glass and smart glass so it's not like so out there that it's gonna set the world on fire everything about this system screams 2005 2006 to me it's like they're coming

to market now with tech that is comparable to what's already available with pricing that is not competitive with what's already available with games that are um with internal specs that are and and and those things are going to be obsolete in in pretty much every way that matters in 12 months i mean it's crazy to me i don't understand the the rationale of like let's be first to market with a new console and it will be i mean headed for being obsolescence 12 months from now because that's i mean by all you know available signs like that's that's where we're headed so so that this strategy worked uh with with we because they went out for a different audience. And it was cheaper than the competition.

It came out after the Xbox, came out the same time as the PS3. So there was a lot of parts of the Wii strategy that helped it work. The difference here is that with Wii U, they're targeting it towards the core. We have Black Ops 2, and it's like, who wants to play Black Ops 2 and doesn't have an Xbox?

Or who wants to play black ops 2 and doesn't have an xbox or who wants to play black ops 2 and would buy a more expensive wii u even though there's you know even though their friends don't have it even though there's still no discussion of the online multiplayer in a game that's all about online yeah your friends don't have it that's the thing but you could buy an xbox cheaper you could buy a ps3 that is also a blu-ray player cheaper and uh you know still get it so like the thing that the problem that they have is that they're targeting towards the core it's coming out at the most expensive price point it's not the cheapest price point anymore it doesn't look better the games all look worse i wouldn't say do they really look i haven't gotten real close up the i think the games I've played have been first party

Which look like Nintendo first party games They don't look like It doesn't look like Let's put it this way I think it's graphically comparable for sure I don't know They released some Batman screenshots yesterday Wait are you serious?

It does not look like that I've never seen it first person I've only seen it Wii U So Madden It looks like a Wait, are you serious? It does not look as bad. I've never seen it first person. I've only seen it, you know. So Madden, it looks like a, I don't even know what to say. It looks like a higher def Wii game. There is none of the effects, none of the visual filters, none of the, you know, kind of. No Infinity Engine.

There's no Infinity Engine. If you look at, man, the Transformers Prime game they showed, that looked like a first-gen Wii game. That looked terrible. I have no idea what they showed there. Yeah, I don't know what that was. That was one that really jumped out at me. It was like, wow, guys. But even if you look at other things, if you look at Mass Effect 3, if you look at Assassin's Creed 3, if you look at Black Ops 2, none of those games look as good as their 360 PS3 counterparts.

That's strange. Which is weird because, especially with Black Ops, they're pushing it to another screen. I mean, they're pushing this out twice. Is that just to allow for that to happen without a noticeable degradation in quality? Ask them. They didn't want to talk about it.

Oh, yeah, of course. The thing is, it is the first release of the system, and it's the first batch of games, and maybe it's going to take them a while to catch up, and that's fine. And I think there's that fanboy in my head that's like, oh, well, give them a couple years, because over the life of the console,

it'll probably look better than the competition. But they're not competing against Xbox in two years. They're competing against Xbox this holiday. And Xbox this holiday, games look pretty damn good. And Wii U this holiday and xbox this holiday games look pretty damn good and we you this holiday they don't look as good so it's amazing how much it reminds me of the dreamcast in terms of kind of just like not quite their versions of their you know big characters games with a lot of kind of weird interesting ideas but maybe a lack of cohesion it feels let's be the gamepad is a giant vmu it is no it really is and it feels like it because of that i mean like if i'm being completely honest

like and not just because like it's my job but i will buy one i think there's going to be really interest there will be a handful of interesting experiences um on the console over its lifespan i'm not even sure what those interesting experiences are right now aside from like zombie you i think looks looks pretty neat when nintendo land comes out i could see myself having a lot of fun playing that with my girlfriend and my friends like that is the kind of of social gaming that i can get into um but it's not i mean i also wanted to do the other stuff like it would be nice if it did the the online is just the biggest thing for me. It's crazy.

Because what I was talking about, it's not just about how the console specs will be obsolete by the next generation. That's obvious, but it's nothing that Nintendo hasn't surmounted before. I don't think that, metaphorically, consoles are going to be the same things in the next generation that they are right now i don't think that consoles are just going to be that forget i don't think they will not be just a box that you throw a disc into and play a game on like no matter how desperately nintendo wishes it would stay that way they're going to be more than ever before methods of delivery i mean they're going to be about storage they're going to be more than ever before methods of delivery i mean they're going to be about storage they're going to be about um you know streaming or at least about at least about cloud storage

which yes but they also didn't talk about that like so much of what i think is happening in gaming so much of what is so important i can guarantee you the xbox 720 and ps4 and ouya and a future apple tv product and anything um it's all about that the services you know it's and that's like that's the whole industry now i mean you know i think bezos said it i think on stage on the kindle event last week and it it mirrored a lot of gaming really well where he said we want to make money when people use our product not when they buy it and that's what the gaming industry has been doing for a long time right subsidizing hardware to get people to use their ecosystems and that's becoming you know the business model for all these tablets and phones and everything else it's a business model i think the gaming

industry is going to double down on in the next generation but we and nintendo are still making products that you know i think with a $350 price tag they're making money off of day one for starters yeah um and you know it doesn't seem services heavy which is weird like and and i just again to me it's it's baffling it's also i think like i don't know there's a part of me that the kind of consumer advocate inside of me gets angry that a year and a half ago they went on stage and talked about how online was so important when they first announced the wii u at e3 2011 about how online was so important and here we are you know two months to launch and they won't talk about it it's like guys

a year and a half ago you said it's like super important guys we finally got it online we're gonna do it and here we are and they're like nope maybe they have something like completely crazy and if first off if you had something completely crazy this seemed like an opportune moment to like to drop it or you know you're trying to six months ago would also be a good time yeah let me tell you all the times they had to drop it they pre-announced the wii u in april 2011 like strangely you know we could have a big blowout at e3 but instead we'll release this little statement saying that yeah we're making a new wii so okay whatever yeah that was pretty bad like apple apple doesn't do that and they seem to do okay

but sure whatever so you pre-announce the wii u then you uh go to e3 you show off the wii u then you have a um there was a uh roundtable event after that then this year at e3 they had a pre-e3 live streaming press conference they had the the E3 press conference. They had a developer Q&A after that. They had a Smash Brothers Wii Nintendo Direct event like a month later. They had the 3DS press conference. Was that the developers press conference? The 3DS?

Yeah. No, there was a developers one. There was also a Wii U Q&A, developers Q&A. Remember they had four press conferences this year? One for 3DS. Because they spent so much time during the press conference talking about Wii U. That was their explanation. And then just yesterday they had three events.

One in Japan, one in Europe, one in North America and New York. And they've had so many events to talk about stuff for one console. And there are still so many question marks. There are still so many question marks there are still so many unknowns uh and they've also despite all this transparency let's call it in quotes um not only have they left a lot of questions they've failed to build up a lot of anticipation like all that work read read any like there's no i i don't know what application of this i'm gonna what's the if you think about the we and the success that we had and i do cop completely too i think the

hardcore gaming enthusiast press was uh caught off guard by the success of the we yes uh in in in large extent and i'm really i also i'm looking for angles to which that isn't the case again. Like I'm trying to figure out. I think the skepticism that the hardcore press had about the Wii was borne out. That's the thing. Well, yeah. I mean, in a weird way, it wasn't for them. But right.

You think about how it spread through the mainstream, though. Yes. It was that essential experience of we're going to, it's tennis, right's tennis right it goes back to tennis now you don't have to learn buttons you don't have to learn any of that junk just swing it and have fun and that that moment is what soul is what turned the Wii into phenomenon and I don't see anything resembling that moment with the Wii I think it's important I think you can look at Nintendo Land and kind of see whether or not this whole enterprise is going to be a success or whether or not it's going to crash and burn.

And I hate to completely overstate this, but you look at this game compared to Wii Sports. My parents are not going to play Nintendo Land because, one, it's a whole bunch of very traditional hardcore games or just just traditional game games like metroid blast is you know a third person shooter uh balloon fight is a throwback to the actual balloon well balloon whatever they call it is a throwback to balloon fight from the nes it's a lot of fan service for the hardcore which is not going to appeal to you know the average person and it's a lot of games that you have to kind of learn how to play games to enjoy it is not tennis

or bowling so i think right off the bat you you've lost my parents you've lost grandparents you've lost all the hype that you know the we got on top of that the system emphasizes that gamepad controller which is a pain in the ass to play standing up so you're back to sitting down and playing your games so it's not as like active you know go out there and have fun in front of the tv system it is the most sedentary you know uh single player experience i can think of because you literally have to be sitting down to balance you know that controller on your lap while you're drawing on it for how i don't know about that because we you fit okay so think about this though it's called gamepad right it's very obviously trying

to evoke and um you know take advantage of some of the excitement, anticipation, enthusiasm around tablets. The iPad has sold almost as many units as the original Wii, and it did it in two and a half years. And it did it at $500. Add on to that all the Kindle Fires that have sold, all the iPod Touches that have sold. People have a certain expectation about how a device like that works. The GamePad subverts that expectation. When people, like, I can't take this outside my house i can't run software directly

on it like it doesn't make a lot of sense i think you know i think people have an expectation of how tablets work and and the gamepad does not work how many people do you think will buy this system and try to take that tablet somewhere else i mean i'm just saying you know i mean that could happen absolutely i think it will happen i went to a short family vacation earlier this week for a day uh but my mom was there my aunt was there my cousin was there uh none of these people are gamers my sister was there none of these people were gamers i was there um guess how many ipads were in that house now i'll also preface by saying that none of these people are rich like my aunt works two jobs my mom you know is a real turn

it down economy my sister's a vet tech like these aren't people a lot of money they all have ipads all of them they play games on them they watch movies on them they all it's weird it's weird that they all have ipads like i think it's strange um but they uh they they love the things and for them like number one they were the audience or would have been the audience for the wii u they've already got ipads the ones who don't will probably get an ipad the ones who get the the wii u are gonna be disappointed that it's not an ipad and i don't do you really think that's if i see a game system that is a tablet controller and like i i have certain expectations about what i can do with that i absolutely think that the average consumer

unless you target it to just the hardcore which is what they're doing we understand that it's not an ipad but we also understand that a new xbox comes out next year hey i actually had a question and i don't know if you new york guys got an answer to this, but they were showing co-op, Black Ops co-op, on one player playing on the screen and one player playing on the tablet. Good luck flipping that coin, by the way. How are they pushing the video to the tablet? It's coming out of the Wii U. The Wii U is pushing both screens. And as a result...

But it's pushing the video... Do you know what it's doing? Wirelessly? Yeah, it's wireless video distribution. What you're doing is you're playing split-screen multiplayer. And it is, you know like how if you think about it, like have you ever played 3D split-screen where both players wear 3D glasses and one player sees positive and one player sees negative?

Well, you can do that with some PlayStation games. So it's basically the same it's creating a full screen product uh and then the second full screen rather than being a negative space is being wirelessly which i get that i'm saying as far as the wirely wirelessly transmitting it like i don't understand how that's happening without any sort of lag especially with like a first person shooter yeah i mean everything all their games do that let's let's we don't have much time left and i feel like all this stuff we've talked about people can decide for themselves but chris and chris you guys are at the actual new york event

did you play something that you hadn't played before that that just really resonated with you or you know that you have any opinion on that was was first time i played i played most of it before um the stuff i didn't black ops 2 i also i mean here's the thing black ops 2 looked uh good i you know it wasn't the single player it wasn't running at 60 frames a second wait are you sure about that eric hershberg said on stage that it was running at 60 and it absolutely did not feel like 60 frames a second i played it then again we played split screen co-op at one screen on the tablet one screen on the tv and the idea that it would be pushing both of those and doing 60 is that's

maybe a little crazy but they've said they've said that much they said that the the frame rate would suffer whenever they push it to do screens but i to two screens. But I don't think they would sacrifice a 60. That's what they build their entire... Right, right. I'm just saying that what I played wasn't 60. Yeah, we didn't play single player. For multiplayer, we didn't play single player. We played co-op.

But, not co-op, we played competitive split screen. But it worked well. It was fun to play it with two people in the same living room on each having their own screen um it i think the gamepad felt weird to me and so did the pro controller just because the orientation but you'll probably get used to that um but that to me it was a neat experience it was a lot of fun i can imagine a more unique game that wasn't available on every other console in the world um with a huge multiplayer component would probably do better with it.

But that was a good proof of concept for me. It was also the first time you saw a game like Black Ops that looked like it's supposed to look on a Nintendo console. This wasn't a weird, really low-res port. This was the real deal. Now, granted, when Modern Warfare 4 comes out for Xbox 720,

what's the Wii U version? I don't know. But that, to me, was interesting, Warfare 4 comes out for Xbox 720 what's the Wii U version like I don't know but it was um you know that to me was interesting and it also kind of reinforced Nintendo's push for the core uh going around and looking at the rest of the stuff you know a lot of it was stuff that you've already seen or played Ninja Gaiden um Mass Effect 3 uh it was mostly you know what was most notable was the delta between stuff that's already out like like Madden on 360 versus madden on wii u um i also think a lot of the nintendo land games do look like a lot of fun and the fact that it's not coming in the 300 bundle seems insane to me like

you know a lot of those games really do prove the model of having asynchronous um like displays so you're using using two different things. There were some things, I'm not sure why they changed. The Metroid game became co-op instead of competitive. No, there's a co-op mode and a competitive mode. They're explaining these things very poorly. Each of these things has different modes. So you have like like you know

what is it 12 games i think something crazy you have i think like 12 games but then like each game is different game they have more modes but they don't want to talk about that it seems like a lot of value like that one game has a ton of stuff in it i don't know why you wouldn't want people to have it considering we sports has sold you that's what's so years baffling about it is that they don't see the connection between everybody having Wii Sports and everybody wanting to own a Wii. I

will say that the thing that is the bummer about Nintendo Land is it feels like a collection of iOS games. Very good iOS games, very polished iOS games but all of it could be replicated using your ipad and iphones uh there's nothing like wii sports where it just felt like a creative

wellspring you know like everything couldn't be done anywhere else you know you had to own this because this is the only place you could play it but like the biggest promise that it has and for me that's exactly it like really polished ios games the reality is they don't make ios games that are that polished you know like and the ones that are don't work that way they don't have the same tactile controls it's like i'm sold on that as a core gamer who might be interested in this i just also don't think it's an ecosystem i'm going to invest a lot of time or money into i'll buy it at launch i'll play nintendo land i'm not going to buy my third party games on wii u like you know nothing they showed me you know proved to me that having the gamepad um well you're mass effect having the gamepad on darksiders 2 was was

meaningful you're certainly not going to and this is you know this is another thing that's like what i'm getting at you're not going to buy your third party games there now you're certainly not gonna buy your third party games there in a year when they're being made there are no there are no third party games for it like because who's gonna also support the one that has bad graphics and you have to make two screens for it well not just bad not just bad yeah that's the thing you've got to make a special version of it that's not... I'm super into the idea of asymmetrical gameplay. I just do not see how it's sustainable from a developer standpoint. Because I think that the PS3, the next PlayStation, the next Xbox are going to be fairly close to parity.

of the next xbox are going to be like fairly close to parity and this the the wii u is going to be miles behind and also require the development of all these special gamepad features i just don't see how that's an appealing offer for developers yeah i will also say this in terms of special gamepad features we still don't know exactly the extent of smart glass for xbox which is going to work with your ios device it's going to work with your windows phone device and i think your android device it's going to have like you know support for all those platforms so tons of devices already in the market um and uh you know sony could do the same thing with vita we haven't really seen much of it yet but you know it's certainly possible there's a little big planet yeah i mean they have the ability to do it and and the the little big planet cross play vita stuff that i've done where you use the vita as a controller and an extra like self-contained world like that they can do it they can swing it it's it's the same stuff that we use doing

and so it seems to me like i think nintendo is going to have the luxury just like they did with with we of having games that are custom built for it and almost you know except for the third-party ports but almost all like the original wii u games will have like zombie u right will have that integration which is really cool i don't think you're going to see that kind of integration on the third-party games i don't think you're going to see that kind of integration on ps3 with vita or on on Xbox with Smart Glass. But what you will see on those other devices is the potential to have some of the shallower integrations. Which can still be kind of neat.

I could see that inventory management in a role-playing game that's on other platforms. I could see that being a huge draw for me to to wii u i feel like certain genres even are i'm going to want to play sort of like how i like playing first person shooters on the 360 i could see myself playing strategy games and role-playing games on the wii u um i would say i haven't shown any of that yeah and i would say as a wrap-up i mean that's the problem i think there still is a lot of potential for wii u i think what they had to bring to the table at this point which was like their 10th time

showing off the system and talking about it they really had to like knock people out and i left that event with so many questions and so many like feeling like there were so many missed opportunities why didn't you show an rpg with of stuff? Where was Pikmin? Like you already talked, how is this stuff not a priority for you guys? And I don't know. I just felt like they missed and they've continued to miss so many opportunities to really provide clarity into what they're offering people.

And I feel like especially if they're going after the hardcore gamer to not even talk about, to literally ignore any kind of online feature besides, hey, we'll have netflix is bizarre it's like it's completely baffling and it makes me very nervous for the longevity of the product like if they're not able at this point in their life as a company to figure out online um well the xbox and ps3 are you know on the cusp of redoing their things uh i i don't know

this was a day after apple showed off asynchronous multiplayer on game center on iphone 5 and game center is like kind of a mess but the fact that it's kind of a mess and it's still so much better and it's still adding features um that anything nintendo's ever done is really telling and it and it's not just so we're clear uh and at least for me this our our negativity here isn't really about the price i mean no the price is fine the price is just about what it's justified because like if it if it cost a hundred dollars i still would be completely baffled about its long-term viability how it keeps itself relevant

if anything the date is the more shocking thing because we are now 65 days out and they're like half of the things that there are to know about the console are unknown so to be positive to wrap this up

because maybe you've already pre-ordered your review no i'm gonna buy one too late here's what i'd recommend uh i think if you're going to buy this zombie u looks fantastic and it's a game that ubisoft must be pushing money into uh in the last minute because it looks so much better now than it did at e3 and it looked good then but it is polished it's running smooth uh hist are pushing every little idea they can into that it's also like the gamepad it's also like the only it's like the only core game that nintendo land is going to come with that deluxe edition because you don't want to buy that stanky uh general edition and then then what i i don't

know really if there's anything else to like recommend if you have another console because i would seriously recommend buying it on something else um yeah i mean i don't even know what i'd recommend you know for pre-ordering down the line new super mario brothers u did you recommend that i i know i mean why do you need it if raymond has all the creativity platforming joy you need i don't know i don't know what super mario brothers u does that the nintendo wii u or like the last nintendo wii super mario brothers didn't do or 3d the 3ds version i i just try I have a hard time getting excited about it. Man, it's derivative. I think Zombie U is the best bet

in terms of an exclusive game that looks good, that's going to appeal to the core, that really uses the gamepad in unique ways, that's going to feel different. Zombie U is it. I think if you're going to have a chance at launch, you need two things. You need one thing that's there day one that people can get excited about.

And then something down the line that they can look forward to. With Vita, for me, it was like there was cool stuff on the first day and then you had Gravity Rush to look forward to. Here, Zombie U is definitely worth a day one pickup, but

past that, I just don't what nintendo needs what nintendo needs other than online to know to know how the internet works um they need like they need like four or five more ubisoft's ubisoft has six launch day games that's that's cray they have and they have even more games coming out for the rest of the launch window but they have have six games on November 18th that are going to come out alongside the Wii U. But this is a weird case where, like, for me, it's not even about the games. I would trust that the games would come if I had any reason to think that this was going to be a successful effort. You know?

They will support it if the... Now, will they support it with a bunch of minigame trash like on the wii who knows but they will support it if this if it's successful i just i don't see anything else about the console that says this has a chance to be viable long term yeah um but in closing wii u looks pretty good yeah pre-orders today i want to believe me too we are not haters i'm gonna buy it like i'm gonna buy it and then i'm gonna sit there because i like being excited i like the turnaround i got really excited when the vita started to uh i get it well i mean it's still in the process of becoming a worthwhile investment of my money but i'm like a i'm like

a crappy stock broker who takes lots of risks and a lot of them don't pay off but uh the one out of ten times that they do it's it's it really gives my life meaning uh and in closing nintendo please um google uh internet google google just yeah figure out what google is and go to a library. Talk to the librarian about what Google is. And then maybe they'll let you use the computer. Show them your ID. Promise them you're over 18. Here's the thing.

Tiger made a system called Game.com like a million years ago. And they knew what the internet was back then. I just don't get it. It's driving me insane. It's really bad. Chris, will you buy one? Yeah, I'll buy one. Yeah, obviously.

We're not talking about that yeah obviously oh in closing we're all a bunch of fucking hypocrites i'm gonna buy one but i'm rich yeah i do it for a living this is my job like if i'm at if i'm and do i think i bought a wii i bought a wii at launch day at midnight toys r us new york city how much do i play it i almost never touch it all the skepticism though it. All the skepticism, though, and all the cynicism that we have about the Wii, I don't regret my Wii purchase. I, like, for the four or five awesome, like, Skyward Sword and Smash Bros. Brawl,

like, there's some, there's, there, I had a lot of fun with that system, and I'm sure I'll have a lot of fun with the Wii U. Same strategy for Wii U, yeah. I'm just, my concern is not hatred or Tobias it's it's genuine concern that this thing isn't even going to get a shot it's not going to get a fair chance i like the idea of asymmetrical gameplay and i think nintendo is poised to deliver on it uh i certainly before and possibly better than anybody else and i'm worried i really am worried

about like an extinction event and i don't i i really don't want that to happen besties besties