Nintendo Wii U

The Nintendo Wii U is an eighth-generation video game console and the successor to Nintendo’s hugely successful Wii. It was released in 2012 but never generated the excitement of its predecessor, which was not helped by a weak line-up of launch games.

The Wii U competed with Microsoft’s Xbox One and Sony’s PlayStation 4. Although both launched about a year later, the Wii U never came close to their sales. It is hard to say whether its game library or its marketing was more to blame, and the similarity of its name to the Wii may have confused some buyers.

For some time Wii U emulation looked unlikely. A few projects tried, but most were short-lived or ran into problems because of the lack of documentation on how the console works.

The breakthrough came in October 2015 with the first release of Cemu, the first Wii U emulator to show real promise. Cemu became open source in 2022 and now runs most of the library. Another open source project, Decaf, has also made progress, although it remains experimental.

The Wii U’s biggest problem was its game library. Nintendo was slow to bring its major series to the console, and many third-party publishers abandoned it, despite some standout releases such as Bayonetta 2.