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Of the many consoles Nintendo has made, it is rare for there to be a failure as catastrophic as theWii U. It was a genuinely unique and inventive console, but some bizarre marketing, poor branding, and an overall lack of games that really took advantage of the hardware, it was doomed to fail and be replaced in record time.
That said, there are still some stellar games on the Wii U, though very few of them remain exclusive to the console. With the console being one of Nintendo’s more high-profile failures, did it end up getting that many games at all? Let’s find out.
How Many Games Were Made For The Wii U?
With the Switch as its successor with over 5,000 games, you might hope even a little bit of that came from the Wii U. The console was not backwards compatible with anything from the Wii U however, so the vast majority of its games are brand-new, aside from a bevy of ports. The Wii U pales in comparison,totaling in at somewhere around 800 gameswith a generous estimation.
What makes this number even smaller is that a very small number of those games were ever released physically. In total,around 200 of those 800 games had a physical release, with the rest lost with the closure of the Wii U’s eShop. That means around75% of the Wii U’s entire library was lostwith the shutdown of the eShop. Legally, anyway.
When Was The Last Game Released For The Wii U?
After the Wii U’s launch in 2012, it was quickly discontinued in 2017 and quickly succeeded by the Switch. Yet despite the console’s discontinuation after only five years, a handful of games still found their way to the console. In fact,the Wii U’s final game launched over ten years after its initial launch.
The very final game released on the Wii U was a duo of games,Silver Falls: Undertakers and Silver Falls: White Inside Its Umbra. Both of these games were exclusive to North America andreleased on February 16th, 2023. The Wii U eShop closed just a month later, meaning you had very little time to snatch this piece of Wii U history.
The last game to get a physical release on the console wasShakedown Hawaii on August 20th, 2020.
What Were The Launch Titles For The Wii U?
The Wii U, despite a rather lackluster library in the grand scheme of things,did launch with quite a hefty number of games. It launched in North America first, though thankfully had less than a month between every major regional release.
The console also had a hefty number of games available at release in Europe and North America, though was somewhat lacking in Japan. Despite a stellar line-up of games though,very few were first-party, and even fewer were system-sellers. Many were ports with some extra bells and whistles rather than brand-new games, either.
FIFA 13
NBA 2K13
Scribblenauts Unlimited
Sing Party
The Wii U came with a massive34 games at launch in North America, followed closely byEurope with 32. Japan falls quite a bit behind despite launching after the previous two regions withonly 11 games, and only one of them, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, new to the region. The overall number of games is quite respectable, though.It’s far from the weakest launch for a consoleeven on the low end, though lacked a star game to push units.
