Is the Wii U Dead on Arrival?

It's the second full week of the Nintendo Wii U, and in it's second week it's starting to look dismal. With only a few promising titles on the horizon this raises the question, is the Wii U dead arrival?

Outside of the Nintendo first party games, the only non-Nintendo exclusives are Lego City Undercover and Rayman Legends. Everything else coming in the next 3 months is either a port or something that showcases the hardware. Even Nintendo's first foray in hardcore games (which are ports of XBOX and PS3 titles) have come in rough with many consumers complaining about broken gameplay. The only thing many sports gamer's are saying is the Gampead works great for sports games.

Unfortunately, the bundled game with the Deluxe Edition of the console does little to showcase the Wii U Gamepad. If anything, it makes it even more obvious that the system wasn't needed due to the small effect the pad will have on games.

Now this is the same question that came pouring in following the Playstation Vita and Nintendo 3DS. Fortunately for Sony they stuck with the handheld and attempted to continue to promote it. Nintendo, however, quickly scrambled to save face and dropped the price of the 3DS. Sony has since done little and it's slowly falling the way of the PSP. There's good reason to believe the Vita was dead on arrival.

But is the Big N really going to let this happen to their first true HD console? There's a lot of reason to believe they may not do so hot. Let's look at what's happened following the release of the Wii U. First, news came out that the XBOX 360 outsold it over the Thanksgiving Weekend. Next, Nintendo announced a new Canada only Wii SKU. Titled the Wii Mini, it's removed several components to slim down and uses a top loading drive.

Isn't it a little strange timing to bring out a new SKU when you're just launching your newest system?However this isn't the only news right now from Nintendo. Rumors have it is the Nintendo handheld console, the 3DS, is looking at an upcoming price drop. Not only is the 3DS price dropping, but it appears the 3DS XL may also be dropping before too long. There is a new bundle for the 3DS XL out as well featuring Mario Kart 7.

It all seems a bit confusing for Nintendo consumers, but there may be something going on that we aren't aware of. The Wii U isn't hard to find, drive over to a local retail store and I'm sure you'll find it. You can order it online and there's a chance you'll get one quickly. Unfortunately it's the White 8GB version that's all over the place. If it shows us anything, it's that gamer's who are out to buy a system know it's worth the extra money to buy the 32GB Deluxe Version. 

I myself picked up the 32GB version, purely by luck. I had seen 8GB Wii U's everywhere, however I couldn't justify a $300 purchase for something I knew I'd surely have to upgrade before too long. Not to mention the fact that it's bundled with the game NintendoLand, a bigger hard drive, and several accessories that will cost you an additional $100 or more if you bought the 8GB and purchased everything else separately. 

However, I'm still not sold. After a good solid 4-5 hours with the system I've begun to question Nintendo's direction. I also believe that consumers are hesitant since the original Wii sold big early, but then became everyone's favorite paperweight. I'm only keeping my Wii so I can use it as a Gamecube. 

If we take anything away from what we've seen the last two weeks is that Nintendo may be scared themselves. I'm almost wondering if they will quickly do a price drop like they did the 3DS. If they do, I can only hope they reward us early buyers with either a copy of Mario or Scribblenauts. It just doesn't look good for Nintendo. The Wii U also could show Sony and Microsoft that it's just not time to release a new console. I'd be in favor of putting off new systems for a year or two right now. I think we've just begun to see the systems maximized by everyone while some have already mastered it and I think consumers are just beginning to get their maximum enjoyment out of the consoles.