It should come as no surprise I like video games. I’ve owned (at one time or another) each of the current generation systems. In fact that the believe I’ve owned at least two 360s and exactly two PS3’s. Why? Hardware failure. After my second or third 360 death I moved to PS3 which lasted years before needing a replacement. For the Wii I stood in line for hours launch day and was barely at the cut off point when they did the counting. I got sick from standing so long in the cold but it was worth it.

This week the Nintendo Wii U has been on my mind a lot. It’s the first of the next generation consoles. It’s marketing to people like me has been incredibly poor. I’m not a classic cable watcher or OTA network guy so all ads I’ve seen have been online. Many times I have to seek out information rather than be enticed by advertising. For me this means there is still things about the Wii U that I’m sure I don’t know about.

One feature I just picked up on was TVii. It actually matches half of what I’ve really been wanting in a media center device by finding the prices and availability across services I have seen subscribe to.

The primary usage of a Wii U is videos games. No brainer. It’s a Nintendo device. Recently I walked up to one of the demo stations at a store. The tablet style controller was comfortable and lighter than you’d expect but all of the games on the station were video only. I was pretty disappointed with the graphics quality shown.

I wasn’t expecting realistic graphics or anything like that but watching the videos on the station I felt like it was not much of a step up. Yes, better but an evolutionary step for the console series, not a revolutionary one. I saw artifacts on Mario. I shouldn’t be seeing that.

Granted, this could be the demo stations fault. It’s possible cheap televisions are in use. Maybe it will look better connected to a normal consumer TV. But then again this is a station that is there to entice me into buying. The only thing I could say for sure was that the station had the opposite effect. I went in with a secondary objective to find out about launch day plans or pre ordering but left pretty sure I would not be buying a Wii U.

But after further thoughts I think TVii is what will tip the scales for me. Not at first, mind you. I want to make sure it’s not a gimmick that falls into the shadows after launch. As long as TVii gets added sources and good post launch reviews  I think I’ll have a place for the the Wii U.