Aside from the expected stuff, the biggest news will be the price tag and what is in the box. Will there be a Wii Sports type game inside the box? I doubt it. NOA and NOE understand the importance of bundling, but NCL are stuck in the stone age. And who the hell buys a game console with no games? So use the price tag Nintendo gives out and add ONE game. I will use NSMB U. If the Wii U costs $299 and NSMB U costs $59, the true cost of the system is actually $360. Idiots in Japan may think consumers separate the console cost from the games, but this is not the case. The Wii showed this was not the case. And do not forget that the DS was bundled with Metroid Prime Hunters demo (and later various games like Mario Kart DS).
The big, big issue will be the Wii U software price tags. If Nintendo is charging $40 for 3DS games (outrageous I think), then $60 for Wii U games is almost for certain. Nintendo will never allow handheld and home console games to become the same. People like me will just purchase the 2d Mario and then only purchase E-shop games.
The big, big question mark is the E-Shop. How will the account system work? How will our VC game library work with this? Will the E-shop be available on day one? It should because the Wii shop was available on day one. I remember when the Wii was released. Immediately, I purchased Mario Brothers off the shop because I could never find that game to buy during the NES era.
If no E-shop available during launch, Nintendo gets an epic fail.
If Virtual Console games are not account bound, Nintendo gets an epic fail.
If we can’t play our Virtual Console games on the U Pad (where we can do non-game stuff like Netflix), Nintendo gets an epic fail.
If the Wii U hardware blows up like the launch Xbox 360s did, Nintendo gets an epic fail.
I find the Wii U lead up to launch extremely frustrating. When the Wii launched, even before we got price details, I had so much more information. For example, I knew that Mario Galaxy existed and what that game would be like. I knew Mario Brothers, Super Mario World, and Mario 64 would be launch titles on the Virtual Console.
Nintendo has not shown any information about the E-shop or available games. I played mostly E-shop games on the Wii so the E-shop on the Wii U is very important to me. And the lack of any news of software outside the launch Wii U games scared the crap out of me. I have no idea which way Nintendo will go. I know the NSMB U is there because it is an easy and fast game to make (and the board demands a 2d Mario be made). Pikmin 3 is there because Miyamoto had to make it after promising it at E3 2008. And Nintendo Land is the ‘show off hardware’ launch game. Nothing tells us which direction Nintendo intends the Wii U to go in terms of software. Are we going back to games more like the Gamecube? Are we going back to games more like the SNES? Where is this console going? The Wii actually indicated this with its zapper controller, with Mario Galaxy, VC games shown, and so on. But Wii U is about ‘surprise’.
And I hate surprises.
I hate surprises so much that I am willing to wait a year or two after a game comes out before I spend any money on it. If entertainment depends on surprise, then it probably wasn’t entertaining to begin with.
