Why am I not surprised?

Why am I not surprised that the Wii U would have such an abysmal showing?

Nintendo has, once again, proven that they are incapable of exciting anyone unless it's by trotting out their tired old fanboy-bait franchises.

They started off with a showing of Pikmin 3, the long-awaited sequel to the GameCube cult hit. Then, it went downhill in a damned hurry.

The Big N doubled down on 3rd party games this year, and that proved both disastrous and predictable. Outside of the meh-looking ZombiU, the third party games were all ports. Mass Effect 3, Ninja Gaiden 3, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, yawn, yawn, yawn. Nothing that really says to me "GO BUY A WII U!" All this tells me is that Nintendo's in for one hell of a rude awakening when the eventual next iterations of the Xbox and PlayStation come out.

Nintendo's first party offerengs aside from Pikmin were, you guessed it, an orgy of Mario. TWO New Super Mario Games (one for 3DS which looks suspiciously like a re-skinned Wario Land attempt, and another on the Wii U). Paper Mario. Luigi's Mansion. It continues to pain me to see what was once the most creative company in the industry playing it safer than 3rd parties. It's like they don't understand what made their efforts on the NES, SNES and N64 so special, and are instead content to ride out their recognizable characters until the heat death of the universe.

At least they're publishing Lego City Undercover. Score one game that's a bit out of the mascot wheelhouse.

After that, we get the online theme park, NintendoLand. I won't bore you with the details, save to say... Minigames. Mascot-themed minigames.

Again, I'm faced with the possibility that I am simply no longer in Nintendo's demographic. I'm not in my tweens. I don't get all starry-eyed at the mere mention of one of their mascots. Their gimmicks (indeed, anyone's gimmicks) fail to appeal to me. Maybe I just keep paying attention to Nintendo in the vain hope that someday, somehow, they'll recapture the long-gone glory days, and that they won't have to rely on constant nostalgia-mining.

Perhaps it's time I stopped deluding myself.