My fiancee and I just picked up Mario 3D World and Wind Waker HD. The semester is starting soon, but these games seem perfect for the time between ripping our hair out over projects and studying for midterms or finals.

@kwagmeijer Yeah. What gives? They don't have set release dates, but both games are supposed to come out sometime this year, aren't they? Why would you showcase Mario Kart over Smash or "X"?

I was hoping this one was going to be about all of the whiners who complained about A Link Between Worlds winning Game of the Year. No worries. It's understandable that the team would rather do an end of the year countdown for the last show of the year. You guys rock! Keep up the good work in 2014!

I have a feeling that Nintendo's fortunes are on the rise for 2014. It's seen some nice bumps in sales for Wii U over the past three months worldwide, and finished second among all consoles sold in Japan this past week as it sold over 100,000 units in that week.

@larkin-54 @skateryanboarde That's not exactly set in stone.Studios could, if they wanted, choose to make Wii U versions of their software. Activision made each Call of Duty game for Wii, in spite of it being technically inferior to the other consoles. You may have a point when it comes to certain games, but if Wii U can still manage to attract games like Watch Dogs, there's hope it could court other cross platform titles.

To some companies, it's a matter of financial priorities. To others, it's a matter of hardware specifications. Companies like Activision, Ubisoft, and EA are more concerned with the system's install base. Companies like Bethesda are more concerned with hardware specifications, because of what they want their game to be able to do and how they want it to be able to look.

Now, with that said, Wii U is has been described as more powerful than previous generation systems. Some developers claim Wii U's CPU is underpowered. Others claim the opposite, but say that it's not much more powerful than last generation. The GPU, on the other hand, is said to be significantly more powerful than the previous generation, but it's dwarfed in comparison to PS4 and Xbox One. When third party developers are asked about Wii U features compared with last and new generation versions of the same game, they have usually said it's between the two, but closer to last generation. So, the abilities of the system tend to lie between PS3/360 and PS4/XB1, but closer to the PS3/360 side of the mid-point.

Personally, I don't think Wii U will flop. I think I'm going to end up needing another console for certain games (FFXV, Kingdom Hearts 3). However, I think Nintendo will have solid first-party offerings that will make people interested in Wii U. The next Smash Bros is looking great, the Legend of Zelda tech demo from 2011 can only get better, and I haven't read a single bad review about Super Mario 3D World. Let's not forget why people play Nintendo consoles. It's for Nintendo's games.

It stung to hear him say "The Big Two". It used to be "The Big Three". I'm assuming Wii U was what was being referenced as "indirect competition". Oh well, I'm enjoying my Wii U.

Johnny is absolutely right!

@Riptonk @skateryanboarde Leave to me to not pay attention to that. lol Thanks. I'm likely getting it for Wii U, and it would be nice to see that build of the game. However, I'll probably have to wait until a week before it releases to see what it looks like on Wii U.

Does he mention what version of the game this is? Should we still assume this is PC?

@Raiden8 @abHS4L88 Is it bad, or do you just not like the style? I know a lot of people get confused when it comes to things like that. There are a whole slew of people who hate Borderlands, because they think the graphics suck, but they really just don't like the art style.