It’s easy to sit down and discuss the Wii U’s failures — lack of purpose, clunky design, confusing name — but its success? It’s a shorter list, we admit, but one thing many of us will agree on is its stellar library of games (we mean, look how many people made the jump to the Switch).
With the console turning ten years old late last year, we’re now in a period where Wii U announcements from a decade ago suddenly come back to our minds.As we noticed on Twitter, such an anniversary happened yesterday (thanks @Nintendo Daan) It’s been a full decade since the console’s “Nintendo Games” Direct demo aired.
This Direct was pretty much a one-man show with occasional cameos compared to the style of presentations we’re seeing today; that being said, there are still some quality announcements to come. The Twitter thread above teased some of the highlights, but let’s briefly touch on some top-notch content prepared by the late, great Mr. Iwata.
Aside from announcing updates to the Miiverse (some of which never materialized), this is a Direct doing its best to make Wii U news last. We have confirmation from the excellent Virtual Console service that Game Boy and GBA games will be added in the future *Looking at the Switch and sighing*, the reveal of Yoshi’s game, which later turned into Yoshi’s Woolly World, an update for Bayonetta 2 and news of a Super Smash Bros. delay.
And that’s not even to mention Wind Waker HD’s reveal and Eiji Aonuma’s teaser about another “game-changing” title in the future series (We wonder what that might be?).
True, the presentation may have been a bit simpler compared to the music-filled trailer feast we’re used to by now, but it’s still a nice trip back in time. You can watch the “Games for Nintendo” livestream in its entirety below and relive those decade-old memories.
The content of Wii U-years is stretched thinly over its 36-minute runtime, but there’s something to be said for seeing real people in Direct presentations rather than voiceovers from video to video – come on, we’ll Cherish those Iwata speeches forever.
What do you think of the stale, personal tone of Direct? Would you like to see it come back? Fill out the poll below and let us know what you think in the comments!