Nintendo Are You There?

Hello, Nintendo...where are you? Seriously this is how I feel right now. We are now in November 2013 and basicallly have not seen much from Nintendo in months. In the past two months the Wii U has had great games release like:
1. Pikmin 3
2. Wonderful 101
3. Rayman Legends
4. Deus Ex Human Revolution Directors Cut
5. The Legend of Zelda, The Wind Waker HD
6. Batman Arkham Origins
7. Assassin's Creed 4 Black Flag
8. Call of Duty Ghosts
9. Sonic The Lost World
10. Lego Marvel SuperHeros

I'm on Wii U, but nobody knows

That's the main games, but there others as well. So where the hell is Nintendo? The only commercials I've seen for any of these games was Sonic Lost World, and I'm sure Sega paid for those. All these third-party games are heavy hitters. I've seen both Sony and Microsoft have commercials for all of them. Yet Nintendo doesn't even make a commercial for its first-party games.

The average person has no idea that any of these games are on the Wii U. That's somewhat an over statement; most people don't even know that the Wii U exists. It's been out almost one year now and it's still practically unknown to the average consumer. It seems like Nintendo doesn't want the Wii U to sell. Iwata and Reggie keep trying to tell people the Wii U will be fine, but it's getting harder to believe.



The Wii U has an amazing line up of games right now. If Nintendo would just tell people about them the Wii U would be flying off the shelfes. I just beat Batman Arkham Origins (very fun game). Now I'm playing Wind Waker HD. Once I finish Wind Waker I'll get either Assassin's Creed 4 or COD Ghosts. This is what most every gamer would love to do, play the best first and third party titles back to back on one system. All Nintendo has to do is tell people that they can do that with the Wii U.

Does Ouya Matter

Ouya has finally been released. Ouya was a huge sucess on Kickstarter. It had a lot of people excited about the idea of an Android gaming console. So how is Ouya and does it matter in today's gaming market?

For starters Ouya is not a powerhouse. Ouya is designed with Indie developers in mind. This means that you wont see a lot of big budget titles releasing. However Sega has a few Sonic titles and Square Enix has Final Fantasy 3 on Ouya. So there are some exceptions, but overall it will have smaller unknown games. For the record I love Shadowgun on Ouya (just like I did on Xperia Play).

Not that there's anything wrong with that. I actually like a lot of indie games. As smart phones have proven there is a huge market for these games. So time will tell of people want to play these games on the big screen.

Okay so Ouya wont blow your mind with graphics but it is a really well built(and good looking system). The OS is also smooth and attractive. Every Ouya game is "free to try" so there's no upfront money to get playing. Overall the Ouya is a good, cheap console ($99).

Does the Ouya matter? I thought the Ouya concept was great when I first heard about it. However since then both Sony and Nintendo have been making huge efforts to get Indie games on their platforms. In theory the games releasing on Ouya will also be on Wii U, PS3, PS4, and PS Vita. Plus the fact most of these games are on IOS and other Android devices.

Ouya really is a cool device. At $99 it has huge potential to make waves in the gaming industry. I just wonder if it's a little to late. Either way if you can afford to buy one you might as well, it's fun.

Can Wii U survive?

Well we are past E3 2013 and where is the Wii U? Honestly I think it's in the exact same place it was before E3. It's still on the shelves waiting for consumers. People still don't have to much of a reason to purchase a Wii U. The only main stream game released recently was Game and Wario, and that got average reviews at best.

Even the games shown for the future were not very exciting. We got a Mario game that no one wants, and another Donkey Kong game. Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros were shown but are still going to be next year before a release. The other games shown were titles we already knew about.

As far as third party support went...well there wasn't any. No one talked about Wii U any except Sega with Sonic Lost World. The only time I remember seeing a Wii U anything was during the Ubisoft convention. It briefly showed a Gamepad in a dance game. Square Enix talked about it's Wii U Exclusive of Deus Ex. Then it told the world it was no longer an exclusive.

 I love my Wii U. I see so much potential in this little system. It's just hard for us early adopters to have faith in Nintendo when all you hear is bad press. I'm hopeing that once Pikmin 3 and Zelda release later this year that Wii U will start selling consoles. I can't imagine how much of a drought next year will be if doesn't start selling and selling soon.

Nintendo and Sega Partnership

In case you missed it Nintendo and Sega have a new partnership. They have agreed to make the next 3 Sonic titles exclusive to Nintendo platforms. So far 2 games have been announced, Sonic Dark World and a new Mario and Sonic winter Olympics game. The 3rd hasn't been announced yet.

This is huge news for Nintendo. Lately all we hear are what games are skipping the Wii U. So having a few exclusives is a big deal. Sega announced earlier in the week that it has 7 games in development for Wii U this year. I personally think Sega is one of the best game companies around, so I'm excited for the year.

Sega also announced Yakuza 1-2 HD for the Wii U. Right now this is only announced for Japan. Hopefully they will bring it to the US and Europe as well. This may not sound like a huge announcement, but until now Yakuza was exclusive to Playstation.

Anywho here's a little good news for all you Wii U owners. There will be a lot more news soon leading up to the week of E3. Check back for more info.