The Wii U and the 2DS

Some things are happening with Nintendo lately involving the Wii U and the 3DS.  Though Nintendo has been having a hard time selling the Wii U, they seem to have the games this holiday season to help combat against the X-Box One and Playstation 4.

Still, it seems Nintendo ain't taking any chances.

Nintendo's home console can be yours for just $299.99 starting September 20, the house of Mario announced today. That's a $50 price cut for a console that's about to get a steady flow of Nintendo-made games but that's been struggling to sell at even half the pace of its predecessor.

The Wii U will sell in two models: the existing black deluxe model bundled with the pretty-good game compilation Nintendo Land or in a new Zelda model. An image of the latter leaked last week.

That Zelda console is black, but its GamePad controller is etched with Zelda-style script The bundle will also include vouchers to download a digital (duh) copy of the Hyrule Historia Zelda lore book and a copy of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD.

Both consoles include 32GB of on-board flash memory. The system can be connected to self-powered hard-drives for more storage capacity.

"Obviously we want to drive Wii U momentum," Fils-Aime said of the reasoning behind the price drop. "We've been very clear that software is what drives hardware. And we feel very good about the line-up of software for Wii U. Taking the added step to improve the value just reinforces our commitment to make sure that Wii U has a strong holiday this year and is set up to be a strong platform into the future."1

The Wii U has been struggling to catch on in its first year, a fact Nintendo, to their credit, isn't trying to hide.

"All you need to do is look at the numbers," Fils-Aime said. "At this point in time the Wii install base was beginning to approach three million—this is U.S. numbers—and as we sit here today, the Wii U installed base is at about 1.5 million. So clearly the sales pace is different. But I will also tell you that the focus on making sure that this holiday—its second holiday—is really strong is actually quite consistent with the way we've always thought about our hardware launches."
 

A bold move on Nintendo's part.  But what about our sacred basic set?



Nintendo has all but phased out the white 8GB version of the Wii U, a system that retailers seemed to begin dumping this past spring. That "basic" version of Nintendo's console had originally sold for $299, sans pack-in game. "That has largely sold through in the marketplace," Fils-Aime said. "There is not much of that particular configuration out and we don't expect there to be much at all come September 20."



 Wait a minute.  You mean to tell me that you're phasing out the White 8GB version of Wii U?  Well how am I suppose to waste money on the cheapest system possible when you only have the 32GB version available? If there was only some sort of price cut....oh wait.  N/M.  Let's move onto the next topic: The 3DS.

For the past few months, the 3DS, despite its small sales, has finally dominated the X-Box 360.  But it looks like Nintendo is releasing an even cheaper version of their handheld that is aimed at a younger crowd with: Nintendo 2DS



The system will go on sale in October for $129, far cheaper than the current 3DS.  It will be compatible with all your 3DS and DS titles, and it lacks 3D and a Clamshell design.  Suitable for all your little kids needs.

But what's that you say?  You think the 2DS looks ugly.  You think it looks alot like an Axe.



Hah.  Ridiculous.  If it were anything like an Axe, it would do something like this.



I now officially feel sorry for the Playstation Vita.  It didn't even deserve that.

I now leave you with a small set of paragraphs of a heart touching story about a blind girl and her Nintendo Wii U.




Back when the Wii U was launched, I had hoped for things like Netflix allowing us to stream a movie to the TV as well as display it on the GamePad simultaneously so Jen could have her own display and sit on the couch with the rest of us to enjoy a movie.  This ended up not being the case, but the seed was planted for the GamePad being a display that could move with her.  

I looked through the library of Wii U games as they were released to find something we could play together in this way but could not find anything that would work.  New Super Mario Bros U had the feature, but she would die pretty quick and became frustrated.  It wasn't what we wanted.  But when I got home last Sunday with my new boxed copy of New Super Luigi U in hand, I had an epiphany about the new character that Nintendo decided to replace its signature plumber Mario with...Nabbit.  
Nabbit is different because this character is basically invulnerable.  I'm talking you can run about the screen and you will just pass around enemies without being "bumped" or "tossed" anywhere so you are free to move about.  This lead to a character Jennifer could play and run with, but without the frustrations that plagued her before.  She still can fall into a hole, but then Nabbit is tossed into a bubble and she gets to "shake" the remote to let us pop it which she thought was hilarious.  I was amazed at how quickly she picked up the mechanics and started jumping gaps and running about.  I would smile as she got her face so close to the screen that a platform would pop up when her nose tapped it from time to time before she figured out it was a touch screen too. 

 People complain and argue that the GamePad is an unnecessary accessory on a system that is failing to launch fast enough.  They complained that the Wii Remote was too simple and could not allow for "proper" gaming.  Yet here I sit able to say that the Nintendo Wii U...with it's GamePad and ability to use the Wii's Remotes has led to me playing a game with my daughter directly for the first time. Where at night when my wife goes to work at the hospital me and the boys could join into a 3 player game while my daughter would watch a movie finally have a 4th player.  We are together and my daughter has broken another "she can't".




Works Cited:
Kotaku
Zenspath