The Wii U is struggling because it has so few games. Nintendo has a massive library of amazing classic games. How have they not put two and two together yet?
Last week, Nintendo finally launched the Wii U's Virtual Console, which allows you to download and buy classic games so you can play them with the Wii U's cool new features, like Off-TV Play. (You can play classic games on the Wii's Virtual Console too, but you have to navigate a brand new menu, and you can't play those games on the Wii U GamePad.)
But pickings are slim: the service launched with merely eight VC games, and longtime Nintendo fans are starting to worry that history will repeat itself. The Wii's Virtual Console service was great, but game updates were sluggish and inconsistent. Are we about to see the same thing happen with the Wii U?
Today on Wired, Chris Kohler writes an excellent (and scathing) editorial about this very subject:
On a recent 8-4 Play podcast, I said that Nintendo should immediately institute some kind of App Store-like development environment, mobilizing the combined efforts of the world’s indie developers to generate lots and lots of Wii U content more cheaply. Ryan Payton, formerly of Metal Gear Solid and Halo fame and now of the indie game Republique, offered that Nintendo could do something similar but by looking inward rather than outward: Make Wii U a “Nintendo paradise,” he said, a one-stop shop for Nintendo’s entire history.
Good idea! What are you waiting for, Nintendo? Seriously. Even the PlayStation Vita—which has been the gaming industry's punchline for over a year now—lets you download loads and loads of PS1 Classics and PSP games. I wrote about this four months ago, and not much has changed: if we could play Nintendo's entire library, from the NES through the GameCube, on the Wii U's Virtual Console, this would be the system to own.
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Why Hasn't Nintendo Turned The Wii U Into A 'Nintendo Paradise'?