Wii-U Hardware Review

Developer Nintendo 

Publisher Nintendo 

Platform Wii-U

Release Date Out Now.

For most gamers of a certain vintage there is one name that is synonymous with video games. Nintendo is a company that has always been at the forefront of the industry, one that has stood by us when many others jumped ship. A company that has given us some of the greatest games, characters and arguably the best console ever made with the SNES.

 

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They have fallen away recently with the Wii, and despite having some stellar titles it fell down from a hardware point of view. Clever marketing sold the Wii as a different way to play, but the reality was very different. When Nintendo announced that they would be bringing out a new console that could rival anything on the market we were filled with equal measures of optimism and trepidation.

Thankfully the Wii-U does deliver, there is no doubt that it’s as good if not better than the ageing PS3 and Xbox360 but that comes as no surprise considering they are both in the twilight of their life cycles. None the less it is good to have Mario and friends playable on quality hardware again in full HD.

One thing to note is that due to the delay in getting to market the window of opportunity for the Wii-U is quite tight. The impending release of the PS4 and the next Xbox console means that consumers have one eye on the next gen which will slow current gen sales. This has one devastating consequence for third party titles. Many developers are skipping, delaying or releasing watered down versions of their titles for the Wii-U.

 

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The huge advantage the Wii-U has is its first party titles. The Mario and Zelda franchises alone are true console sellers. Super Mario Brothers U is an absolute gem of a game.

The unit itself is aesthetically similar to the Wii in size and shape. It comes in two packages a standard 8GB unit with just the controller or the premium package which has a 32GB unit with a number of extras including stands and chargers.

The main selling point is the new controller with inbuilt touch screen. This can be used within the game to add extra options to the gameplay such as organizing your inventory and is a great feature to avoid taking the player out of the game and messing around with annoying menu systems.

Another feature allows you to play the full game on the screen on the controller which is very handy if the main TV is required by others in the room.

The touch screen itself is a resistive screen rather than a capacitive one so sometimes the inputs are not as fluid as you might expect and multi touch input isn’t an option. This doesn’t have a huge impact on the overall experience.

Overall: The Nintendo Wii-U is easily the best games console on the market right now from a hardware perspective. Processing power, load times and graphical output are all at the top end of the spectrum ensuring a seamless gaming experience.

As with all new consoles the software side is small but growing all the time. It will be interesting to see how the next year pans out for Nintendo but at the moment the Wii-U is hard to resist.

 

 

 

 

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