wii u gamepad lcd screen free sample

<script>window.addEventListener("message",function(a){var b=document.getElementById("dozuki-embed-57152"),c=a.data[0],d=a.data[1];switch(c){case"setHeight":b.style.height=d+"px"}},!1);</script>

Most of the difference is the fact that the Wii u still runs in limited range rgb. So on some TVs it can look a little washed out. My calibrated sharp aquos is a full grid led 120hz with 4ms refresh time. Mine looks very close to the gamepad. I believe that if Nintendo allows full range rgb it would look better I used my PC to test the difference between limited and full range rgb and in my case limited with the PC has that same slightly washed effect compared to full range.

The Xbox 360 and PS3 both have setting for limited or full range and same result full range yields better color and contrast. My TV has amazing blacks no crush.

The op doesn"t have really the best display no offense that TV was very popular because it"s big and was cheap. But is plagued with reliability issues with its image processor and some other things not to mention dlp"s lamp life and color changes due to ageing bulbs. I went from a dlp of high quality to my current display no comparisons the new display is leaps and bounds better I"d never game on a DLP

Everyone"s still is going to look different just to many TV out there and most tend to buy specials that are OK but not good by any means. To me a TV is like any major appliance you use it a lot so don"t go cheap.

By continuing to use AliExpress you accept our use of cookies (view more on our Privacy Policy). You can adjust your Cookie Preferences at the bottom of this page.

There are a lot of things I’d love to tell you about the Wii U. I’d love to tell you how the Miiverse social networking service lets you play games and exchange messages with friends. I’d love to tell you how the GamePad’s built-in camera works for video chatting with other Wii U owners all over the world. I’d love to tell you about the transfer process for content from your old Wii, or how the new system handles old Wii retail games, or how easy it is to expand the storage space with a USB hard drive, or what the sign-up process for the new Nintendo Network ID is like, or how functional the Web browser and free video apps are, or how the new eShop compares to other digital download services.

Unfortunately, I can’t tell you any of that. As of mid-day Saturday, mere hours from the system"s North American launch, Nintendo had not yet pushed out a promised firmware update to activate all of these features (and maybe a few that I’m not aware of). (Note:Nintendo did push the firmware update at about 6pm CT, five hours before the company"s embargo on reviews of the hardware was set to lift. We"ll have reporting on the extra features as soon as we"ve tested them.)

As a result, this first review of the Wii U is going to be necessarily incomplete. While I can offer an extensive review on the Wii U hardware and the unique new touchscreen GamePad controller (Ars reviewed some of the system"s big launch games earlier this week as well), I can"t yet offer an opinion on many of the system"s promised features.

Of course, we"ll be sure to update our thoughts as these features are introduced post-launch. But until then, a large portion of the Wii U is best exemplified by the screen that greets me when I turn on the system: my Mii standing all alone in a vast expanse of nothingness, waiting for stuff to do. Advertisement

One of the biggest questions dogging the Wii U in the run-up to its release was how its processing power compares to that of other current-generation consoles. Unfortunately, the verdict on that is still largely out.

One thing is clear, at least—the HD graphics on the Wii U are at least on par with those of current HD systems. I loaded up the opening cut scene for Mass Effect 3 simultaneously on both my Xbox 360 and the Wii U, switching TV inputs to compare the rendering between them. If there was any difference in the quality, I couldn’t make it out.

But if the Wii U is capable of generating graphics more detailed than those of other current systems, the launch games I’ve seen so far don’t do a great job showing that off. First-party titles like New Super Mario Bros. U and Nintendo Land capture the company’s signature bright, cartoony style, but they come across as high-definition versions of games that would have been possible on the original Wii. Third-party titles like ZombiU and Tank Tank Tank! show more detail and have more moving elements than what was possible on the original Wii, but those titles are far from out-classing complex games on the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. Most of the other launch titles are direct ports of games actually available on those systems. These look indistinguishable on the Wii U.

I’m willing to believe the Wii U is more powerful than the older HD consoles though, primarily because the system is also pushing a lag-free wireless image to the Wii U GamePad while it generates those HDTV graphics. Sometimes that touchscreen image is just a mirror of what’s happening on the TV, but often it’s a totally different viewpoint of the same scene, or a different scene entirely. I’d have to imagine ignoring the touchscreen altogether might actually give developers more horsepower to spend on the image being pushed to the TV. Advertisement

We covered our first impressions of the physical hardware when we first got our hands on the system, but it’s worth noting again how small the Wii U is compared to even the reduced-size revisions of other HD consoles. At 1.8" high and 6.8" wide, the unit is barely bigger than the minuscule Wii when viewed from the front and is only noticeably larger when extending to the 10.5" depth. If you already have a Wii in your entertainment center, the Wii U should fit in as a fine replacement with no problem.

Nintendo has added a lot of nice small touches to the system, too. The power and eject buttons rest flush with the front of the system, making for a nice, smooth surface that is quite pleasing to look at. The cover that conceals the front USB ports and SD card slot retracts into the system, rather than protruding out when opened, to preserve those flush lines.

There’s also a small LED light to indicate when there’s a disc in the system, a head-smackingly obvious addition I hope other system makers will copy from here on out. My only real complaint with the physical hardware is that the shiny finish on my black, Deluxe system is a magnet for thumbprints. It"s quite easy to smudge any time you move the system around.

One of my first thoughts when playing the Wii U was that the games appeared to take a long time to load. Games like Just Dance 4, Madden NFL 13, and Ninja Gaiden seem to take forever to load even basic menus and scenes. But when I actually broke out a watch and compared the Wii U’s load times to launch window games for other recent systems, I found the delay was generally within historical norms.

You can see the results of my testing in the table below. The first column is the number of seconds from first loading the game to seeing the first warning message or company logo displayed by the game itself. The second number shows the total time it takes to get from the Wii U menu to the first interactive in-game menu (after skipping all skippable logos and intros). The third number is the amount of time it takes from choosing "new game" or "continue game" on the first menu to getting actual controllable gameplay. I’ll let the numbers speak for themselves.

This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.

The only time you can actually flip the screens is in the Miiverse menu. Otherwise, what you"re asking for isn"t possible with the standard software and hardware. No YouTube Let"s Players have been able to do what you"re asking for.

So far, the only people who are able to record Gamepad footage without placing a camera over the Gamepad screen are Nintendo themselves, and other developers.

..what is "off-TV play" like where does both the TV and gamepad display the same content? is it possible for it to display the same image of the wii menu?

If a screen with a red x between an image of the GamePad and Wii U Console is shown, press the SYNC button on the Wii U Console again and start over from step 3 above.

Time has not been kind to the Wii U. Now that the Nintendo Switch is out and seeing resounding success year over year, Nintendo"s last-gen efforts look even more halfhearted. As the ill-fated system sees its biggest games ported to Switch with one of its remaining must-plays, Super Mario 3D World, headed over in February, it has all but completely lost its one claim to fame: an excellent first-party library.

While time hasn"t been kind to the Wii U, not many were kind to the system during its commercial life either. One of the most common complaints from that era that reverberates today is the general hate for the Wii U GamePad. However, the Wii U"s tablet controller has more merits than people give it credit for.

Wii U GamePad"s form factor doesn"t immediately help its case. It"s a chunky peripheral, and one that has often been derided as feeling like a Fisher-Price toy. Undoubtedly, it has flaws. It should"ve been a slimmer piece of tech with a more premium finish, its screen should"ve been higher fidelity and its battery life should"ve been longer.

While these things are true, it"s also incredibly comfortable. Especially in comparison with the cramped Joy-Con, the GamePad"s layout is spacious. Its face buttons are soft while still having a satisfying click, the wide shoulder buttons offer a nice place to rest one"s hands and the grips on the back of the GamePad make it comfortable for long play sessions.

At the same time, it"s packed with technology, from its NFC scanner to gyroscope that add functionality. The GamePad isn"t so much toylike as it is industrial. To this point, what the GamePad lacks in aesthetics it makes up for in utility and comfortable, tactile design.

Of course, a degree of this success is personal -- not everyone will find comfort in the feel of the GamePad. However, its biggest asset hasn"t been discussed yet, and, it"s the most obvious: the GamePad screen. While the concept of dual screen home console gaming never caught on the way that Nintendo wanted it to, the GamePad illustrated why such an idea is engaging. From Nintendo Land"s asymmetrical multiplayer to

There was a simple magic to seeing the natural implementation of the two screens and their effect on gameplay. Other gimmicks like the Wii Remote forced traditional games to bend around their design and become inherently different to fit the controller. The Wii U GamePad allowed for traditional console gameplay experiences to be made better and move inventive without being watered down.

While the most interesting uses of the GamePad were the most overt, it also worked nicely to complement games that didn"t focus on its second screen. The Legend of Zelda HD ports were excellent examples of this where having the map and items displayed passively on the GamePad screen cut out the need for cumbersome menuing.

Beyond its ability to make Wii U software more engaging, it simply acts a short-range portable system. While the GamePad can"t travel more than a few feet away from the console itself, it does free up the TV for other uses. This is less novel in concept now that the Switch is a true hybrid, but the GamePad does still have one advantage: the Wii U"s legacy content. While Nintendo Switch Online has a solid offering, it"s lacking many heavy-hitters. By filling the Wii U with a surplus of classic games, the GamePad can be turned into an excellent, in-home retro Nintendo machine.

Simply disconnect the Wii U from the TV, keep it plugged in and display the image to the GamePad only. This is the definitive way to casually enjoy past Nintendo titles from almost every system in the palm of your hand. It"s a great way to repurpose the Wii U and GamePad to still be essential in 2020 -- at least until the Nintendo Switch gets a better handle on the Virtual Console.

There are many implementations of the Wii U GamePad that, even in 2020, make it a much better controller than people gave it credit for. While it"s far from perfect, when given a true chance, the GamePad is a worthy peripheral. Much like the Wii U itself, the GamePad"s legacy is simply misunderstood.

This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.

How fast is the Wii U GamePad? Does the ability to wirelessly stream gameplay from the main console come with any kind of lag penalty? Armed with a high-speed camera, we decided to find out.

On a basic level, the Wii U hardware is capable of rendering dual framebuffers - one for the traditional console output, the other beamed over to the tablet controller, offering multi-screen gameplay. Alternatively, many games - including New Super Mario Bros. U, Batman: Arkham City and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 - have the ability to mirror the main display, allowing gamers to "detach" from the living room TV and "roam" to a certain extent. Mileage will vary, but we were quite impressed with a 10m range that included the ability to play in other rooms, with no line of sight to the main console required.

The mirroring function has other uses though. It offers us the chance to accurately measure the time taken for video to be encoded on the host console and then transmitted and decoded on the tablet. In our post-E3 Wii U hands-on, we"d previously given this a shot, only to find that the measurements were too good to be true: the GamePad units were tethered by cable to the consoles (a function of debug hardware) and we actually found that the tablet controller was running 116ms faster than the LG HDTVs Nintendo brought to the event. With retail hardware in our hands, it was time to get a more accurate result.

Measuring the GamePad"s display lag is a two-stage process: all modern HDTVs have a certain amount of processing latency, so our job is to choose one for our Wii testing where this is a known quantity. Step forward the PlayStation 3D monitor. In our review, we found that all inputs had a two-frame (or 33ms) latency, regardless of the source resolution. To be doubly sure our control was accurate for this test, we re-measured the display using a Ben Heck latency controller monitor board. Previously, we"d ascertained that Forza Motorsport 4 had a 66ms, four-frame response time, and the 3D display returned a six-frame latency in our latest testing, confirming our initial two frame lag result.

Next up, we run the Wii U on the same display at the same source resolution, then place the GamePad directly in front of it and film the two screens using a high-speed camera. We chose New Super Mario Bros. U as our Wii U game since it runs at a v-synced 60FPS with a new unique frame produced without fail with every refresh of the screen. With our baseline measurements and chosen game in place, any difference in update between the two displays can be used to get our result.

"Even factoring in encoding, transmission and decoding, the GamePad possesses almost identical display latency to the PlayStation 3D monitor, connected up directly to the Wii U console via HDMI."

We pointed a 60 frames per second camera at an HDTV with the Wii U GamePad also in shot. Having established a two-frame latency on the larger screen we were pleasantly surprised to find that the GamePad refresh matched it frame for frame. We saw the same results on other games too, including Nintendo Land.

The result is a major vindication for Nintendo"s streaming technology, because we could find absolutely no difference between the input latencies of the PlayStation 3D monitor and the Wii U GamePad based on the 60FPS sample we got from our camera. We"ve slowed down our camera shots here, so you can see the results of our testing. Quality isn"t great (we filmed in the dark owing to the unwelcome reflective glare of the PS3 monitor"s screen) but the snippets we see here of the NSMBU attract sequence speak for themselves - we have a match between both screens on a per-frame basis, confirming an overall latency in the 33ms area. That"s a remarkable achievement.

So how was this achieved? Polygon"s recent article suggests that Nintendo worked closely with technology company Broadcom (responsible for the main chip in the Raspberry Pi, amongst a great many other things), adapting an existing technology called Miracast for the new console. The principles are similar to Apple"s AirPlay: video is encoded using the h.264 compression system, then it"s beamed over WiFi via the 802.11n protocol to the receiver where it is decoded and displayed. The difference is that a direct peer-to-peer link is established rather than going through a router, cutting down latency significantly and allowing Nintendo to standardise and optimise the connection using bespoke parts.

Compression is essential owing to the sheer volume of data. A raw 24-bit RGB stream with 854x480 resolution at 60FPS would require a 72MB/s transfer rate - way too high for WiFi. As we noted in our original Wii U review, colour space on the transmitted image has been downscaled significantly, reducing base image bandwidth to 36MB/s. Employing compression technology such as h.264 could reduce that by a factor of ten with little discernible loss of quality. The direct connection may even open the door to the less computationally intensive MJPEG compression: it"s often deployed for applications where latency is a key issue and the 802.11n wireless standard should be able to sustain bandwidth for a 480p screen running at 60Hz.

Regardless of the technical ins and outs, our tests demonstrate that in an area where Nintendo couldn"t afford to fail, the GamePad"s video streaming offers excellent, low latency results with rock-solid performance. Bearing in mind that many HDTVs operate with far higher levels of lag, this is a significant achievement. Indeed, for many people, using the GamePad screen will provide a marginally more responsive experience than playing on their regular display.

Nintendo is famous for iconic characters like Mario and Donkey Kong. It"s famous for making creative games, even when its hardware isn"t the most powerful around. And it"s famous for being really, really bad at online gaming. Nintendo"s DS handheld and Wii console both use Friend Codes, a long sequence of digits gamers have to trade to be able to play games together. Even worse, since individual games can have friend codes, keeping track of friends is much more difficult than it is on the unified Xbox Live or PlayStation Network platforms. Nintendo also struggled to find success selling downloadable games through its WiiWare service. They"ve set out to fix those problems with the Wii U.

Nintendo launched the free Nintendo Network with its new console, doing away with Friend Codes in favor of a single username for an account that works with all Wii U games. The username is locked to a single Wii U console, and every Wii U supports up to 12 accounts. Accounts are tied to the Mii avatars and are used for everything online on the Wii U console: Connecting to friends with a friends list, playing online games, checking leaderboards, and downloading games from the eShop.

The eShop is Nintendo"s successor to WiiWare and the Virtual Console and is the same service the company uses for downloadable games on the handheld 3DS. Full retail games and small independent games are available on the eShop, and Nintendo plans to sell classic games through the service as well. Gamers who buy the Deluxe Wii U also get two years of Nintendo Network Premium, which gives players 10 percent of any eShop purchase back in Nintendo Points, the eShop currency.

And then there"s MiiVerse, Nintendo"s big social networking initiative. MiiVerse is a bit like an Internet message board. Wii U owners can post messages about games they"ve played in communities dedicated to individual games, give comments "Yeah" votes (essentially Facebook-style "likes"), and send messages directly to their friends. Gamers can also post screenshots taken from games, either to show off a cool feature or get help from other gamers. The Wii U supports video chatting (handy when your controller has a built-in camera and screen!), and Nintendo aims to take Miiverse beyond its own video game console. The company plans to release apps for mobile devices, like iOS and Android smartphones, which will allow users to instant message with their Nintendo Network friends and participate in Miiverse.

Nintendo"s obviously looking beyond games with the Wii U, and Miiverse is a big part of that plan. But there"s one feature left that"s even bigger. It"s called Nintendo TVii.

I love my Nintendo Wii. I’m basically unbeatable at Wii Tennis and can hold my own in Wii Bowling (though my six-year-old nephew beats me pretty handily). My family’s Wii Fit has been well-loved, and I’ve saved the world more than a few times in Call of Duty.

Nintendo"s simple, low-res, get-up-and-play console has been a huge hit, outselling both the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 and taking over my family like I never expected. Now Nintendo"s back with the Wii U, hoping to bolster its offering and preemptively outshine whatever Microsoft and Sony are up to next. The Wii U comes with upgraded graphics and processing power, but true to form it"s all about a gimmick: the GamePad. Like the 3DS did with portable games, the Wii U"s GamePad adds a second screen to the gaming equation, which Nintendo hopes will lead to more immersive, fun, and interactive games.

Time to clear a spot in your home theater stack. The Wii U"s console is a hefty piece of machinery, a glossy black (or white) rectangle that may or may not slide neatly next to your TV. It"s surprisingly large — it weighs about 3.5 pounds, and is nearly 11 inches from front to back. The size isn"t the end of the world since it"s something you"ll rarely pick up or move, but it"s deep enough that it stuck out over the edge of my TV stand.

On the front of the console are the power, sync, and eject buttons, and the disc slot. There"s also a sliding cover, which opens to reveal two USB ports and a full-size SD card slot. I appreciate the front-loading of the ports, because even though the cables and cards look bad sticking out of the console, they"re much more accessible in the front than the back. For the port-hungry or the picky, there are two more USB ports on the back, along with HDMI (finally) and AV out ports, and jacks for the power adapter and sensor bar that goes on top of your TV. There"s a small vent on the top, and larger ones on the right side and back — you can definitely hear the fans whirring when you"re playing a game, but it was never loud enough to be a problem.

I"m not sure I"ve ever written about a power cable in a review before, but the Wii U"s merits a mention. Because it"s massive. The power brick is almost the same size as the console itself, and it made installing the system a lot harder — hiding something that big behind your TV can be tough.

At launch, there are two ways to buy a Wii U. The Basic Edition costs $299.99 and comes with 8GB of internal storage, a GamePad, the sensor bar, and all the chargers and cables you"ll need (including an HDMI cable, a rare and appreciated addition). For $349.99 you can get the Deluxe Edition, which gets you 32GB of storage in the console, charging stands for the various devices, and a copy of Nintendo Land. You should buy the Deluxe Edition, if you can find it: the actual available storage in the Basic Edition is less than 4GB, plus Nintendo Land is a fun game you’ll probably want to own. If you do get the cheaper model, you can plug an external hard drive into a USB port and get up to 2TB more storage if you need it, but the drive will be specifically formatted for the Wii U and won’t work anywhere else. Plus, games can’t be run from an external drive, so again — the Deluxe Edition is the way to go.

There are plenty of under-the-hood changes in Nintendo"s new console, but the biggest practical difference by far is the controller. There’s the more traditional console-style pad called the Classic Controller, which lets you game on the Wii U like you would on the Xbox 360, but the star of the show is the GamePad. The GamePad looks like a cross between the PlayStation Vita and Nintendo"s own 3DS, and it actually feels a bit like a separate console — it"s not, but I"m getting ahead of myself.

The GamePad is huge, about 10 inches long and fairly thick and wide as well. Fortunately it only weighs about a pound, and thanks to ridges underneath your fingers in the back is quite comfortable to hold as long as it"s in both hands — it"s a little awkward in one hand, especially when you hold it in portrait mode. It"s made of black plastic, and is glossy on the front and matte on the back. The glossy part is incredibly fingerprint- and smudge-prone, just like the console, and Nintendo might have been better off using the matte material everywhere. The whole thing feels a little cheap and flimsy (a common occurrence with Nintendo consoles) though it"s plenty sturdy in use. The build quality is one of many sacrifices Nintendo seems to make in the name of creating a lighter, smaller GamePad. Most tradeoffs I could live with, but not the battery, which insisted on dying after only about three hours of gameplay — Nintendo obviously sacrificed battery size to keep the GamePad light, and it overshot the balance a bit. I had to have the GamePad"s charger, which includes yet another huge brick, accessible at all times when I was playing, because as you"ll see there"s basically no Wii U without the GamePad.

The highlight of the GamePad is its 6.2-inch, 16:9 display, which is really the central interaction point for the Wii U. It"s a decent screen — its 854 x 480 resolution (about 158 ppi) makes really small elements a little blurry, but it’s still totally usable, and Nintendo"s graphics aren"t exactly high-def anyway. It"s a disaster of a touchscreen, though: the resistive display often doesn"t register taps or swipes at all, and you have to really mash on the screen to get it to register. Gaming"s all about fast-twitch reactions, and you"ll miss a lot while trying to tap the screen. The included stylus is a little better, but not much.

There are black analog sticks on either side of the screen, which force you to grip the GamePad near the top. The four-way directional pad (which you"ll only use very rarely) sits below the left stick, and the A / B / X / Y buttons are below the right, above the Start and Select buttons. The buttons themselves have great travel and good feel, but they"re laid out in the common Japanese style, and to me it just seems... wrong. On Xbox, PlayStation, and most other recent consoles, the most commonly-used button (both in games and for advancing and selecting in menus) is on the bottom of the diamond. On the Wii U, it"s the A button, and it sits on the right side — in dozens of hours of playing I never got used to that, and never stopped pressing B when I was trying to press A. The buttons are relatively far away from the analog stick, so I assume the layout was chosen to make the most-used button easier to hit, but Nintendo should have just found a way to get the buttons closer together. If you"ve ever played video games before, on any console, the Wii U"s going to be frustrating to use for a while.

When it"s used right, the GamePad is an awesome complement to the TV interface — I loved having it as my pocket PDA of sorts during Ninja Gaiden, or using it to draw routes for Yoshi in Nintendo Land. But every game implements the GamePad differently, and most don"t do it very well. Some of the games in Nintendo Land take place almost entirely on the GamePad, so all you see on your TV is "Look at the GamePad!" Others are mirrored, so you"re seeing exactly the same thing on the TV and on the GamePad – it"s distracting to see things happening on both screens, and I wound up constantly shifting my gaze because I"d see some movement out of the corner of my eye.

When you go to the Wii U"s home screen, by default it shows your available Miis (the animated characters that represent whoever"s playing the Wii U) on the TV and all the app icons and menu options on the GamePad. That"s the opposite of what it should be, if you ask me, and it speaks to a much larger problem: I never figured out which Wii U screen is the default screen. Both screens are always on — sometimes you"re supposed to look at the GamePad, and other times the action"s happening on the TV. I was always looking back and forth, in many games not sure where I was supposed to look. This isn"t a systemic problem with the Wii U, but it"s really prevalent in this first set of games — Ninja Gaiden 3 was the only game I played where I could focus on the TV and only use the GamePad when I needed to change weapons or access hidden features.

I had six games at my disposal during my time with the Wii U, and they pretty much cover the whole spectrum of what you"ll be able to play with the console. They have unique strengths and weaknesses, and together paint a pretty good picture of the system as a whole right now. (Our pals over at Polygon have reviewed a bunch of the new Wii U games, so head over there for even more information.)

New Super Mario Bros. U is my favorite Wii U game, but that"s almost entirely because it"s a Mario game. It"s a well-made, beautiful game, one of the hardest Mario games I"ve ever played; there are hidden worlds and cool features everywhere, making it feel like much more than a run-and-jump affair. There"s nothing special about how it works on the Wii U, though — the GamePad and TV just mirror each other, so you can look at either screen, but there"s nothing added by having both pieces. The game is a selling point for the Wii U, but only because Nintendo"s consoles are the only way to get Mario games.

Nintendo Land reminds me a lot of Wii Sports — it"s the game designed to show off all the unique features of the console. It"s essentially an amusement park, full of Mario Party-like mini games, knick knacks, and fun ways to kill time. Some of the games are a lot of fun — my favorite is a Rube Goldberg-like Donkey Kong Crash Course, which involves everything from tilting the GamePad to blowing into the microphone hole. The game as a whole makes ambitious use of the GamePad, coming up with all kinds of wacky ways to use it — as a steering wheel, a bow and arrow, and oh so much more. But that creates a massive learning curve, and it felt like I spent half my time learning Nintendo Land’s individual games. Nintendo Land’s creepy robot assistant is very helpful, and the instructions are usually clear enough clear, but you’ll do an enormous amount of screen-switching, and even more listening to instructions.

Nintendo Land also makes heavy use of the front-facing camera on the GamePad, showing your face on the TV as you speed through Captain Falcon’s Twister Race. It’s a fun idea, actually — one of a few things Nintendo’s done to make the Wii U a better spectator sport. It doesn’t work all that well in Nintendo Land — your thumb might obscure the camera as you hold the GamePad in portrait mode — but I hope developers come up with fun ways to use the camera in games.

FIFA 13 and Ninja Gaiden 3 fall more in line with what I"d like to see from every developer going forward. In Ninja Gaiden 3, an insane fighting game involving more brutal killing than you can possibly imagine, the GamePad is totally supplementary to what"s happening on the TV; it"s where you switch weapons or use your Ninja Sense to find enemies in the dark. You rarely have to even look down, since the required buttons are big and in the corners. FIFA 13 does a lot more with the GamePad: you can change your lineup or formation on the fly, and even pass or shoot using the touchscreen. You could almost play the entire game on the GamePad, though it"s a clunky experience on such a large field. But you really don"t ever have to look down unless you want to — FIFA 13 is a much better experience once you learn how to fiddle with your team on the GamePad instead of pausing and digging into the menus, but you never need to do it and it doesn"t interrupt the game at all.

Both games, by the way, are a huge step above anything I ever played on the original Wii. At their best, Wii U games can be as good as the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, though they"re more often still a step below in quality. The console’s 1080p output is a huge improvement, but details still aren"t always as crisp as on competing platforms, and I definitely noticed more stutters and dropped frames than I expected. The Wii U seems to offer a step forward for developers, but it at best equals the existing pack. Mario hasn"t lost his touch, but he doesn"t have any new tricks either

I"m ashamed to admit how much fun I had playing Sing Party 4. Not because it"s a great game — it"s not, thanks to clunky interfaces and too few song choices — but because singing and dancing games are fun. There"s an external microphone accessory for the Wii U (inexplicably not a wireless one — it plugs into a USB port and has a monstrous cord attached), and you just sing. There"s a multiplayer Party Mode, but it"s oddly done: you don"t get a score or even really compete, you just kind of sing while having to stare at the TV. Yet again, the GamePad is misused — it would be a great way to show lyrics while you move around and sing, but in nearly every mode you"re going to have to sing at your television and not your audience.

Just Dance 4 is basically the same — it"s a fun dancing game, but it"s not a particularly great Wii U game other than a fun "Puppet Master" mode that lets you dictate moves the other players have to follow. The game also requires that you hold a Wii remote while you play, which made me realize how much I"ve been spoiled by the gadget-free experience of playing an Xbox game with Kinect.

I quickly realized that a Wii remote was not just a baton to hold while dancing, but actually a critical part of the Wii U equation. It"s necessary for multiplayer in almost every game, and for anything requiring any kind of motion sensing. It"s also important for playing games designed for the Wii, which are compatible with the Wii U and play as you"d expect. Oddly, no Wii U package includes a Wii remote, but they"re easy to find and work fine with the new console. Just make sure you mentally add the price of one or two Wii remotes to your purchase of the Wii U.

Multiplayer is actually one of the odder experiences with the Wii U. For most games, one player uses the GamePad and everyone else uses Wii remotes. That by itself creates a sort of disjointed experience, like you"re all watching the same thing but you"re on your phone while everyone else watches it on TV. In many games, the player with the GamePad is the only one really playing, and the other players are like supporting actors — it"s less like co-op and more like hero and sidekick. The one exception I found was Metroid Blast, in which you team up to, well, kill bad guys. In that game the GamePad and Wii remote experiences aren’t better or worse, just different — you’re in a vehicle on the GamePad and on foot with the remote, but both are fun experiences geared for their hardware. Once again, the potential is there — it’s just not yet fully realized.

The Wii U is close — tantalizingly close — to being a portable console. So close, in fact, that I found myself wondering constantly why the GamePad wasn"t the console, and the TV-connected piece a peripheral.

The GamePad and console connect to each other via an ad-hoc Wi-Fi connection, which works absolutely seamlessly — there"s no lag, and I had no connection issues whatsoever. Nintendo says the two parts will work up to 25 feet apart, but I found that it could sometimes be much farther; they stayed in touch anywhere in the Verge offices or in my apartment, even through walls. That means for games like New Super Mario Bros. U, where all the gameplay also takes place on the GamePad, you don"t even need your TV anymore — just turn the console on, and play on your GamePad. That"s a great way to avoid monopolizing your family"s TV, and it frees you from even needing a TV. Anywhere there"s a power outlet, you can play some Wii U games using the GamePad. The GamePad"s power made me want even more

It works so well in these cases that I can"t help but wish Nintendo went all the way with the idea. Why not make a portable console that is totally self-sufficient, but becomes something like the Wii U when it"s plugged in or connected to your TV? It could be a single-screen device like the Vita, or a dual-screen device like the Wii U. Devices like the iPad, Nexus 7, and PlayStation Vita are proving that good graphics can come in small packages, and it’d be a smart direction for Nintendo to go as well. Even if the console itself were smaller (and didn’t have that cumbersome brick), it would be something you could toss into a suitcase or even a backpack. Unfortunately, though, that"s just not what the Wii U is. I loved playing New Super Mario Bros. U in bed while the console whirred outside in my living room, but I wish it weren’t such a limited use case.

As soon as you turn the Wii U on, it"s familiar Nintendo fare. The basic interface hasn"t changed much since the last-generation Wii — white"s the dominant color, Miis and blocks dominate the interface, and everything"s big and easy to navigate and find. It"s all very low-fi, but it gets the job done fine.

Step one, as always, is to create a Mii. On the Wii U the Mii acts as both your avatar in games, and as the representation of your user account — the console allows up to 12 users on a single device, and you log in to your own Mii when you first turn on the Wii U. You can even set a password, to keep your saboteur friends out of your games. When you"re creating your Mii, you can choose from all the available features to create your virtualized self, or you can snap a photo of yourself using the front-facing camera and let the system figure out your perfect Mii. I was a little offended by the nose the Wii U chose, but I must say my character looked an awful lot like me.

At the eleventh hour, literally minutes before the Wii U went on sale, Nintendo issued a huge patch for the system. The update took a console that was entirely offline, letting you basically do nothing but insert discs and play games, and brought it onto the internet.

First there are the content sources, which were sorely lacking on the Wii — game consoles are increasingly entertainment sources as well, and Nintendo missed that boat in a big way. The Wii U does much better, giving you access to Amazon, YouTube, Hulu, and Netflix — Netflix is available now, and if it"s indicative of the whole experience then Nintendo did quite well here.

You navigate via a familiar interface (Netflix looks exactly like all of its other apps), and pick something you want to watch. By default, it streams directly to the TV (the console supports 1080p, finally), but with one touch you can play it on the GamePad instead. I give Nintendo a ton of credit for how it handled the integration here — it"s perfect. The GamePad is a great way to navigate through content, and the ability to watch on the controller itself means you can watch Netflix while someone else uses the TV. In that sense, the GamePad really does replicate some important tablet features.

The Wii U"s internet capabilities go farther, too, thanks to the new Nintendo Network. It works as you"d expect, which is a huge improvement over Nintendo"s jumbled previous offerings. It starts with the User ID, which is the hub of all your data — saved games, web bookmarks, and settings are all tied to your user ID. (You can have up to 12 users at a time on the Wii U.) Your user ID is also how people find you to play games, which is a massive improvement over the long numeric "friend codes" you used to have to remember and share in order to play online.

The eShop is only navigable on the GamePad, and it"s a predictably simple interface — you can browse or search for games, read about them, and buy them. It reminds me of the iOS App Store a bit, with its tabs for screenshots and ratings. There are 23 games available at launch in the eShop, including everything from Assassin"s Creed 3 and ZombiU to Sing Party and Game Party Champions. It"s clear that this store is going to be a hub for Wii U games, and that makes extra storage even more important — the store actually warns Basic owners to plug in an external hard drive before starting to download some of the larger games.

Nintendo did a pretty good job of tying everything into a single portal — you use the same account to buy games, video chat, and save data. That"s seriously faint praise, since the Xbox and PlayStation ecosystems have offered superior online systems for years, but I"m sure Nintendo owners will take what they can get.

The addition of a web browser is nice in theory, but I"d bet good money you won"t use the Wii U"s browser more than a couple of times. It"s actually surprisingly fast, but it often renders pages wrong, it has two omnipresent toolbars that take up a lot of the already-precious screen real estate on the GamePad, and it"s incredibly basic. For a quick search, it"s fine (and for that reason alone I"m glad it exists), but between the sub-par experience and the terrible on-screen keyboard, you won"t want to use this much.

Nintendo claims this is the beginning of a network, and says it will offer access to the Nintendo Network services on smartphones and PCs. That would go a long way toward bolstering the Wii U"s ecosystem, but given the company"s somewhat lackluster approach so far I"m not holding my breath.

Nintendo’s also promising a first-party platform for uniting all this content, called TVii. TVii is a combination of TV guide, remote control, (the GamePad already has some universal remote functionality baked in, but it’s limited), and on-demand service. That’s not coming until December, though. Same goes for the Nintendo Network, the company’s bid to create an access point for downloadable content and online gameplay. Nintendo’s making a lot of steps in the right direction, but it’s playing catch-up to Microsoft and Sony, whose years-old consoles already have all these features.

The whole UI is also astonishingly slow and laggy, which makes little sense on such a low-res system. Every single time you go to the main screen, it takes 10 or 15 seconds to load — apps take just as long, even when all they do is throw up the "this doesn’t work yet" error message. Mario takes a solid 30 seconds to load, during which time it shows a static photo with no indication that anything is happening. Patience is a virtue, but so is processing power. I don’t have the first, and the Wii U doesn’t have the second.

Nintendo obviously recognizes that game consoles have become the centerpiece of many people"s living rooms, and knows the magnitude of the opportunity it missed with the Wii. That"s why the company crammed every TV- and content-friendly feature it could think of into the Wii U, from a universal remote to the apps for Amazon, Hulu, and the like.

But Nintendo"s most ambitious feature appeared on my Wii U about a month after it launched. TVii (pronounced like, well, TV) is one part TV guide, one part on demand service, and one part SmartGlass-like second screen companion. It came via a huge download on the Wii U — I think downloading updates is the thing I do most with the Wii U — and promised to essentially obviate my remote controls altogether. The Wii U should, theoretically, be able to control my TV, find me things to watch, and even direct me toward something better when there"s nothing on except for Duck Dynasty.

True to form for the Wii U, the feature list is enticing, but the execution falls short. TVii is clunky and frustrating from the minute you start using it. After the all-too-familiar interminable loading process, you"re prompted to do some basic setup: input your zip code and cable provider, select your favorite movies, TV shows, channels, and sports teams, and you"re set to go. Except that the setup process doesn"t involve making sure your TV is paired with the GamePad. That"s a separate process, and TVii gives you no indication of what to do or how to get there (it"s in the system settings), so things are probably going to seem broken for a while.

Once everything"s finally connected, the hyper-visual TVii interface works a lot like Peel, or the interface I"ve tested on a couple of tablets. The home screen has five options — Favorites, TV, Movies, Sports, and Search — and you pick one to drill into what you want to watch. In TV, for instance, you can see a visual grid of what shows are on right now, with shows you"ve selected as your favorites shown first; select a show and then an episode, and the Wii U can automatically tune your TV to the correct channel. It can even integrate with your TiVo DVR and index the content there, but unfortunately I don"t have a TiVo to test with.

It"s a nice way to see what"s on that you might want to watch without having to flip through a whole guide – though the grid-based guide is here too, if you"re feeling noncommittal or just want to channel-surf. It"s a nice idea, and works okay, except that when you pick something you want to watch you have to first confirm that the TV is on the right input, and if it"s not you have to tap-tap-tap to the right one and then hit "Yes" before anything happens. Or, you know, you could just use your remote.

One of the coolest-sounding things about TVii is TV Tag, a feature that "allows you to follow along on the GamePad while you watch your sporting event or TV show." I had visions of SmartGlass, checking out relevant information about the cast and episode, and for all I know that is what TV Tag is – but since every single thing I tried told me "TV Tag is currently not available for this show," I couldn"t say. Sports do take advantage, showing stats and live updates on the GamePad while you watch the game on TV. That part is pretty great.

As a TV guide, TVii is vaguely useful. For movies, though, it"s basically useless. Theoretically, if a movie you"ve said is one of your favorites is currently on TV, you"ll be able to tune straight to it, but unless Bill and Ted"s Excellent Adventure is your favorite movie ever (in which case odds are good it"s currently playing on Comedy Central), all TVii does is present you with a link to buy the movie on Amazon. Netflix integration could be slightly handier, and Nintendo says that"s coming, but for now it"s just a roundabout Amazon interface.

Down in the bottom right corner of every TVii screen is an icon that brings up a ringed remote interface, which is by far the most consistently useful thing about TVii. It gives you the standard buttons – playback, volume, numbers — but also offers one-touch access to all the channels you named as your favorites in the initial setup. Bring up the wheel, tap once, and you"re on ESPN. Tap again, off to FX you go. I"ve always wanted a remote with buttons for my 25 favorite channels, and the Wii U and TVii pull it off.

There"s a social piece of the TVii puzzle, offering you a way to tweet about what you"re watching or post about things to Miiverse. I can"t figure out why you wouldn"t just use your phone or tablet to post things to Facebook and Twitter, though; and who in the world is posting updates to Miiverse?

Nintendo"s updates have improved performance in a few places – going to the home screen is a bit faster now, for instance — but everything else remains brutally slow. There"s a second or more between you pressing something on the GamePad and any response on the TV, which makes paging through menus or scrolling through inputs nearly impossible. Every menu takes several seconds to load, every action several more to complete — I wasted too much time with TVii looking the GamePad and not watching what I wanted to be watching.

As is the case with so many things with the Wii U, Nintendo"s onto something here. I like the idea that the GamePad is my one and only remote, for my TV, my set-top box, and my Wii U. It"s too big to get lost, having a big touchscreen is great, and some of the features and organizational tools are really useful. It"s a smart move by Nintendo, too, which is gunning to keep the GamePad in your hands at all times whether you want to play Mario or watch Parks & Recreation. But it"s so slow, and so cumbersome in places, that I still constantly found myself reaching for the huge and inscrutable remote that came with my TV. Because when I press a button on there, something actually happens.

I had a number of "ah ha!" moments with the Wii U. There are things it can do, things enabled by the GamePad / console twosome, that are both awesome and unique. I loved diagramming FIFA plays on the GamePad"s touchscreen, then executing them on my TV. I loved being able to play Super Mario Brothers U anywhere in my apartment without missing a beat. I still love using the Wii remote to drive around.

But these moments of brilliance are for the moment overshadowed by the clumsiness of the system. It"s a brand-new paradigm for video games, and there are clear and frustrating growing pains: the GamePad is too often confusing and illogically implemented, and it creates some really odd gaming experiences, especially when you"re playing with friends.

Then there"s the fact that the Wii U itself, with its chintzy materials and giant charging bricks, seems more like a prototype than a polished product. The touchscreen is a mess, the controller feels like someone mapped the buttons wrong, and even the console is bigger and clunkier than it should be.

In all, the Wii U is still as much a tech demo as anything else. It can do remarkable things, but exactly what those things are and how we can best use them are yet to be determined. The Wii-style gameplay is as much fun as ever, but it"s been outdone by Kinect and Nintendo does little here to gain ground. The new console could be great, if developers get on board and come up with clever ways to make use of the entire system. Or, it could be a graphically weak system with a giant controller and a terrible media ecosystem.

Nintendo’s facing an unfortunate chicken-and-egg problem. Developers won’t devote the time to making their Wii U games sing unless a lot of people buy the console, and plenty of shoppers will skip over the console unless the games are great. Nintendo can’t rely on its lead-in, either: Wii sales have plummeted in the last year, falling at a much faster rate than its even-older Xbox and PlayStation competitors. The novely factor of the Wii may have worn off, as customers demand more media features and a better gaming experience — Nintendo has to prove once again that it’s a real competitor.