Nintendo and its UK publishing friends have finalised the list of titles we’ll see arrive here alongside the Wii U next Friday, showing us exactly what you’d expect from a Nintendo hardware launch.
Which means there are a few essential Nintendo games backed by a whole stack of third-party rubbish and old ports no one’s going to touch. Star of the UK Wii U launch line up is quirky party title Nintendo Land which, alongside New Super Mario Bros. U, is bound to be the biggest title Wii U will see until well into next year.
Ubisoft’s Zombie U looks promising but has had some extremely mixed reviews, and apart from that Wii U’s launch line up is padded out with old, generic product like Assassin’s Creed 3, Just Dance 4, Batman: Arkham City and FIFA 13. Here’s the whole 24:
Funky Barn
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2
Skylanders Giants
Transformers Prime
Disney Epic Mickey 2. The Power Of Two
FIFA 13
Mass Effect 3: Special Edition
Ben 10: Omniverse
Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade
Tank! Tank! Tank!
Tekken Tag Tournament 2
Nintendo Land
New Super Mario Bros. U
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed
Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper
Darksiders 2
Assassin’s Creed 3
Just Dance 4
Rabbids Land
Sports Connection
Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2013
ZombiU
Batman: Arkham City Armoured Edition
Game Party Champions
Same old, same old, but now with an entire screen for the high score. [Techradar]













Wii U a Global Sales Flop as Old Wii Outsells Nintendo's New Casual Dream
Happy 24th Birthday Game Boy (and Now I Feel Old)
Working at Foxconn Just Got Slightly Less Brutal
Can’t see any reason at all to get a Wii U, unimpressive all round. Roll on the new xbox, hopefully next year.
Agreed. I think this would end up gathering dust like most Wii consoles are doing currently. There is definitely a novelty value, but for me that isn’t enough.
Hasn’t Assassins Creed 3 only been out for a month? Hardly “old”.
Can’t wait for the revolutionary iPippin, that surely will get us all excited…
I want to get one, i have a Wii and the games and perifferings are all compatible, I love the idea of being able to play the full game on the game pad, that way Mrs Spatchmo can watch Biggest loser or whatever dross she’s into and i can play Mario!
Complete turd of a console, overpriced & underpowered.
The only reason to buy one of these will be for the 1 or 2 Triple A franchise games from Nintendo every 18mths or so, 3rd party support will be nothing more than 360&PS3 hand-me-downs.
Nintendo’s Dreamcast…quickly forgotten once Sony & MS unveil their new consoles.
I shall wait for Mario Kart and the inevitable price reduction. I also think Nintendo will bring out a better Gamepad in a year.
It’s surprising that Epic Mickey keeps getting overlooked given that the sequel exists because the first game was one of the few third party Wii games that actually sold well. With a Christmas release, I’d definitely expect it to be a big seller with the system.
Also, this is still one of the better console launches, well, ever. Most consoles launch with a load of crap and maybe one or two big new titles worth actually buying – no matter who makes the console. The Wii U is not only launching with a new Mario game (something people whined about incessantly about the Gamecube and Wii launches lacking), but some of the best third party games released within the past year. If you don’t already own those games (and if you only owned a Wii, that’s very likely), there’s a pretty big selection there of stellar games.
There are three kinds of people that are going to buy this system at launch:
1) The gadget geeks that will get it because it’s a new toy. This is mostly what I’d fall under, and a large reason why the system will still sell pretty well at whatever price it launches at – just as the 3DS did before the early adopters’ boost faded.
2) The Nintendo fanboys who will get it because of the name on the box. These people are the ones that most likely skipped out the PS3 and Xbox 360 and actually are set to get some pretty amazing value from the system at launch by catching up on some of the best of the recent games.
3) Grand/Parents buying it for kids. The basic bundles will be more than enough value for them (and the entry level version of the console is decently enough priced to make this a fairly good Christmas present). For them, the games on offer really don’t matter – and there’s the stalwart Mario title, Nintendo Land and Epic Mickey to go along with the likely Fifa/CoD based bundles.
I’d say Nintendo have a pretty solid launch on their hands – the bigger question is will the third party support continue well into the next Generation.
Chances are that as the new Xbox and Playstation hardware comes out, the Wii U will not be left behind as badly as the Wii has been. The comparison will be more like the current consoles vs mid-range PCs these days. The new consoles may have more aesthetic tricks than the Wii U, but the overall ability to make the same game (and to be able to make it not look shit on your, now standard, HDTV) will be pretty satisfactory.
The Wii U will even have its own innate features that should set its versions aside from its rivals if need be – albeit we’re not talking anything majorly different here, though the ability to play the game on your gamepad while the TV is otherwise occupied is still pretty cool.
The Wii may have sucked for any real games, but it’s still been one of the most successful consoles ever released. Foretelling Nintendo’s doom is hardly new – but Nintendo are far from in trouble, and it’s far more likely that the Wii U will be a success than it won’t be.
im not at all surprised, itll be another dust gatherer just like the last wii, but chances are itll shift bucketloads. the 3ds was a dissapointment and this looks like it will be too.