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This was the year when the difference was supposed to show, when the gap in power between Sony and Microsoft's new consoles and the Wii U was going to leave Nintendo limping forlornly behind in a distant third place. And yet, two years into its life and a year since it first shared shelf space with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the Wii U still stands as the best prospect for experiences you can't get elsewhere - and if it's simply the best games you're after over the winter break, there's really no faulting Nintendo's console. To say it's been a success would be a flat out lie, of course. The Wii U's launch was, atypically for Nintendo, a mess: the operating system chugged and wheezed until later firmware updates got it running at an acceptable lick, while the console itself was left searching for a clear purpose. There was no Wii Sports to sell the system, or the philosophy behind it; in its place was Nintendo Land, an odd scramble of mini-games built around the potential of that second screen, and Zombi U, a lovable but low-budget undead romp, to fly the flag for this strange machine.
It's still searching for that purpose, too. Two years later, that pair remain the only big name titles to truly explore a gimmick that was dead on arrival. Many of Nintendo's first-party games now choose to ignore the second screen, for the most part, leaving it as the reserve of remote play (an admittedly very welcome feature that works better than on Sony's Vita/PS4 pairing, the gameplay free of artefacts and with minimal lag).
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