I didn’t pre-order a Wii U. It didn’t feel like a system I needed to have on Day 1 so I decided to wait and see how things go.

But the other day I was playing the Need For Speed: Most Wanted demo, and more than once as I was racing around the city I glanced down at the radar in the bottom of the screen and that lapse in focus was enough to cause me to crash. I just seem to have a very narrow field of focus for whatever reason (I’m assuming this doesn’t happen to most people) so I’m really wary of having to glance all the way down at the tablet controller while playing a game. If I can’t keep track of something in the bottom corner of my TV screen, how am I going to keep track of something on a separate piece of hardware!!?

So to anyone who did snag a launch Wii U, is that at all an issue for you? Just curious.

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The other reason I’m holding back is because a lot of what early reviewers are loving about the system wouldn’t really impact me. Being able to play your game on the tablet instead of the TV because someone wants to use the TV is a family-friendly feature but we have 2 people and 2 HD TVs in this apartment so it’s not a big issue for us. Also the multiplayer aspects where one person uses the tablet to do 1 thing and 4 others use Wii Remotes to do something else sounds really fun, but I’m a solo gamer; I don’t have people over to visit to play video games and it’s just me and Angela here and she’s not much of a console gamer.

I think these ideas are neat and I think the Wii U will be an awesome console for families or people who often have company over.

I’m still sticking to my plan of purchasing a Wii U when there are 4 games we really want for it. Scribblenauts is one (for Angela), so we’re waiting for 3 more…

[Update]

And yet another reason for caution, for me. I thought of this when I was watching TV today, couldn’t identify an actress, and grabbed my tablet to look her up on IMDB. I didn’t just grab my tablet, I grabbed my tablet and my reading glasses, which I have to wear in order to see my tablet clearly. That made me realize that if I was on a Wii U I’d have to, I guess, where my progressive bi-focals which I hate. I can see the TV fine without glasses but with the prog. bifocals on I have to make sure I’ watching the TV through the proper ‘band’ in the glasses.

Again, I’m a weird case. I actually have 3 pairs of glasses. Drugstore (non-prescription) reading glasses for reading books, magazines and tablets, a pair of “computer glasses” optimized for reading at arm’s length away (ie, computer screens) and then the progressive bi-focals which I basically wear while driving. I can read with those if I peer through the very bottom of them, usually having to tilt my head back in order to do so. I hate ’em though. If your optometrist every tries to sell you these things, say no. They’re stupid expensive and annoying as hell.