Wii U-seless

Nintendo's Wii U finally became available not too long ago, but whether it lives up to the "next-gen" expectation is a whole different other story. Currently the software itself cannot take advantage of its hardware and currently as well the hardware does not work well with the software itself. Although it is not a completely failure of a product, it could have been done better, and possibly sooner. Possibly the time for the Wii U has already passed.

Problems with the hard drive space against the system software is that the Wii U has a model with 8GB of space. Well the Wii U's soft ware requires 5GB of internal storage which means owners of this 8GB model are left with a measly 3GB. This may cause problems for them as Nintendo will be sellnig digital copies of games from the eShop and with only 3GB there will be a small limit of games that could be bought.

Although there is an option of adding external storage. Unfortunatly Nintendo made a mistake of creating USB 2.0 instead of 3.0. Which means that it operates at a fraction of the speed of 3.0, and it only allows a device to draw a maximum of 500 mA of the current port. It is compatible with USB 3.0 but it runs off of the USB 2.0 which means that it still is very slow. This makes the Wii U even more laughable compared to nowadays consoles, and it does not help that the it already has a terrible amount of internal harddrive being taken up by the hefty but lacking software.

The operating system of the Wii U is rather slow, as it takes 12 to 14 seconds to open the Wii U's Settings. This is rediculous as it should not take such a lengthy load time for loaded items are simply images, text, and a few sound effects.

The GamePad is what the Wii U is all about. There are many problems with it that Nintendo could have also prevented. They chose to stick with the stylus, although you could still use your fingers it has problems detecting light touches. Also the resolution of the screen hampers games such as Darksiders 2, which uses small icons to represent items in your inventory. The Wii U does allow you to stream videos and to play games away from the tv, it also has bluetooth radio that is about 30feet at best. It would be better if they made it Wi-Fi,but does not look like it will happen with the current set-up of the hardware.

The Wii U may have been a great product and massively bought, perhaps 5 or 10 years ago. But now it seems out of date and outmatched by its competitors. Many have come to respect Nintendo's products, hopefully their games will take advantage of this product. It has a lot of potential to create games that will play magnificently on it. As it stands now it has not accomplished anything that has been already done.

Anthony Chen

http://www.gamespot.com/features/the-shortcomings-of-the-wii-u-hardware-6400507/