With tons of hype surrounding Link’s open-world reveal a few E3’s ago, it’s been mostly quiet on the Zelda U front, outside of talks of a possible delay. When rumors began spreading about Nintendo’s new NX console, however, most of us had flashbacks to Twilight Princess and its dual launch on the brand new Wii console, in order to redirect sails from the drowning Gamecube.
The Gamecube itself was a colossal failure, only managing to outsell the Dreamcast during that entire console generation. If that doesn’t paint a good enough picture for you, the Dreamcast was discontinued a year before the Gamecube even hit store shelves.
The sad part of this woeful tale is that Nintendo’s Wii U is well on its way to being their worst selling major home console to date, with only 12.8 million consoles sold as of the end of last month. The Gamecube was considered a failure at 22 million, so I’ll let you do the math.
To rub salt in the wound, the PlayStation 4 sold 17.7 million units in 2015 alone.
That being said, it came as no surprise when Nintendo confirmed yesterday that the upcoming title in the Zelda franchise would no longer make its projected 2016 release date. Rather, it’s being delayed until 2017 to coincide with the recently revealed March 2017 launch date of their new gaming console, code-named NX.
Now this doesn’t mean that the new Zelda title will release alongside the NX in March, but rather when it does launch it’ll be on both the NX and Wii U simultaneously, a la Twilight Princess.
What this does mean, however, is that the Wii U will go down in history as the only major Nintendo console to not receive a brand new exclusive entry in the beloved Zelda series, unless you consider the Dynasty Warriors spin-off Hyrule Warriors. It’s also the only major Nintendo console to not see the release of a brand new Metroid game, but that’s another post for another day.
The new Zelda title will be the only playable Wii U game at this year’s E3 presentation in June, which not only shows how irrelevant the once beloved expo is becoming, but suggests that Nintendo will most likely use their online Direct streams to show off the NX later in 2016.
Thoughts?
Cheap Boss Attack 
Nintendo really messed up with the Wii U. From the hardware and the failure in developing interesting ideas to make use of the Gamepad, to the fact that neither Zelda nor Metroid hit the console in any shape or form, this generation will go down in history as Nintendo’s worst effort when it comes to their home console.
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It’s a sad case, really.
On one hand, Super Mario 3D World, Bayonetta 2, Wonderful 101, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, and Xenoblade Chronicles X are incredible games. And although they’re not my cup of tea, Super Mario Maker, Smash Bros, and Splatoon made some huge waves.
On the other hand, the Wii U proved that trying to cater to your own hardcore fans isn’t going to sell you enough consoles. The PS4 barely has first-party exclusives, and look at their sales figures — even in comparison to Xbox One, which arguably has the strongest exclusive line-up if you’re in to their brand of games.
I liked the idea of the Wii U, using the GamePad for off-screen play, but I just don’t find myself using it. At all. In fact, since launch, I’ve used off-screen play 2 or 3 times.
The console is fairly weak, its social interaction is lacking, the friend and chat systems are archaic, and Nintendo’s total disregard for online gaming (outside of Splatoon and Smash, of course) is disheartening.
It’s the same company that refused to embrace the CD format and went cartridge on N64, refused to apply common features like DVD functionality on Gamecube, refused to embrace HD graphical fidelity on Wii, and barely did so on Wii U. Nintendo is out of touch with consoles, no matter how many units the Wii sold.
I know I’m probably in the minority here, but I’d be thrilled to never have to buy a Nintendo console again in my life if I could just play their games on PlayStation or Xbox.
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Yeah, it is hard to figure out Nintendo’s thought process.
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I love my Wii U to death and I plan on owning a NX, or whatever the hell they’re going to call it, day one. In my opinion the Wii U is the best console out of the three and the only one worth owning if you’re a PC gamer.
That being said I’ll admit that Nintendo has done some pretty stupid things with the Wii U. Nintendo needs to drop adding new gimmicks and give us a normal controller with the release of the NX.
The Wii U controller is fantastic in my opinion, but it shouldn’t have been the launch controller.
Nintendo games will never go to the Playstation or Xbox. I don’t get why people say that they’ll buy Nintendo games if they were on the PS4 or X1 instead of just supporting Nintendo and buying their products.
Despite the Wii U’s old hardware there are some beautiful games on it. Yoshi, and Xenoblade being the best looking ones in my opinion.
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If Nintendo games came to other consoles, I’d be totally fine with it. I *only* buy their console to play exclusives, but they release so few and far between that I only use Nintendo consoles as a secondary. I agree if you’re a PC gamer the Wii U is the way to go, but I’d be thrilled to avoid having to buy another console just to play their games.
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