WII U – 34 GAMES
- Assassin’s Creed III
- Batman: Arkham City – Armored Edition
- Ben 10: Omniverse
- Call of Duty Black Ops II
- Chasing Aurora
- Darksiders II
- Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two
- ESPN Sports Connection
- FIFA Soccer 13
- Funky Barn
- Game Party Champions
- Just Dance 4
- Little Inferno
- Madden NFL 13
- Mass Effect 3: Special Edition
- Mighty Switch Force! Hyper Drive Edition
- Nano Assault Neo
- NBA 2K13
- New Super Mario Bros. U
- Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge
- Nintendo Land
- Rabbids Land
- Scribblenauts Unlimited
- Sing Party
- Skylanders: Giants
- Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed
- Tank! Tank! Tank!
- Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Wii U Edition
- Transformers: Prime – The Game
- Trine 2 Director’s Cut
- Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper
- Wipeout 3
- Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2013
- ZombiU
The Wii U was the closest Nintendo had come to traditional console gaming since the GameCube. Its launch lineup had a lot of variety with 34 games on offer, but the majority of these were ports of games that had been released years earlier on Xbox 360 and PS3. New Super Mario Bros. U was a fresh new take on the rebooted side-scrolling series, but it didn’t satiate those waiting for the next 3D Mario title.
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed proved to be an incredibly fun alternative to a new Mario Kart, which wouldn’t be released for nearly two years. And while it was fun to play Call of Duty Black Ops 2 and have it actually look like the other versions on the market, no game took full advantage of the Wii U gamepad.
The large number of games on day one drew attention away from what was one of Nintendo’s most lackluster launches in years. The name of the Wii U already confused consumers, and that they didn’t have anything of note to play when the system hit store shelves didn’t help the console’s marketing. It also marks the most number of games available on any Nintendo home console at launch, though this lineup also has the least number of Nintendo exclusives.
