Ultimately, I can't give anyone any reason to own this console.
After some more experience with it, the OS is the slowest thing I have ever experienced, and I have no idea why. There is simply no excuse for the speed of this experience. App loading (Miiverse, Friend List, hell, even Download Management) is abhorrently slow, and so is game startup. Once you're in the game, load times are still bad (no installation, slow drive, I'm guessing) but games run alright - about on par with the current generation of consoles.
Downloads are also atrociously slow - I have a fine connection, but the downloading of patches for games takes forever. System updates as well. And then there's the installation of these things. Microsoft really nailed it when they made downloads act as the installation of games (that's what's happening from what I can tell, anyway) - if the install size and download size are the same, why not just put the files in the right place to begin with? No reason to have installation packages. Anyway, it wouldn't be a problem, but the thing is just so slow!
On the other hand, I do like the Miiverse aspect... kind of. It makes it seem as though there are communities centered around games, but Nintendo moderates the hell out of everything. This is almost appealing based on the typical Xbox Live experience's harsh community, but it leaves it all feeling a little too clean and corporate. Meh. I don't actually use it, there doesn't seem to be a reason to.
And I do like the hardware - I like having a touch screen. But it's a step behind, like Nintendo has been for many years now. My Nexus 7 is a better experience... why? Multi-touch doesn't seem to be a part of the controller, but I would have expected that to be standard. It's not terribly responsive, either. Why? No excuse. I don't know how Nintendo is fucking up these types of things, but they are really good at it. You've got console power behind half-assed tablet hardware. Sigh. It's just a waste...
The launch games are not really worth wasting time with, although the Wii U is what I am playing Sonic & All-Star Racing Transformed on for the first time, and holy shit, that game is awesome. Seriously, anyone who likes Mario Kart, Diddy Kong Racing and F-Zero at all owes it to themselves to give it a shot.
That's about all I have to say, I think. Happy to answer questions, but really there is no reason to own this console at launch and we'll just have to wait and see what the good games for it turn out to be. The only reason I bought it was because I have confidence there will be at least one game worth playing for the thing. Right now my stupid Wii is probably more valuable to me because I can play GCN games.
Post edited December 08, 2012 by PhoenixWright