No, I didn’t buy a Wii U at launch. Personal tradition continues.

Writing this on Sunday morning… the very Sunday morning of the launch of the Nintendo Wii U.

Getting asked a lot if I picked one up.  No, I didn’t… and this doesn’t speak of my opinion on the Wii U.  I played it at E3 and San Diego Comic Con and actually enjoyed it very much.

An odd little factoid about me is the fact that I have NEVER picked up a game console at launch.  In over 31 years of gaming, this is one thing I still can’t bring myself to do.

My first console, so to speak, was actually a Commodore 64, which I got in 1983.  My next was the original Nintendo Entertainment System, which I got in 1988 (though I’d asked for it for Christmas 1987 and failed to get it).  From here, the tradition continued for me, from the Super NES to the PlayStation to the XBox, XBox 360 and so on.

While I’ve always been a rabid gamer, I’d really rather wait to see how a console matures a little before making the investment.  For every NES or 360 there’s a console that only sticks around for a cup of coffee or never lives up to its full potential.  While I’ve gone back later and bought discontinued consoles for my collection, I can’t help but think that I would have been pretty upset if I’d actually picked up the Atari 7800 upon its full national release or if I’d got the Atari Lynx I wanted.

In fact, the closest that I’ve ever picked up a console to release was the Nintendo Wii, which I grabbed about two months after its first retail appearance.  I had a lot of fun with it for about a year, too, but then grew a little tired of motion controls forcing their way into games that I didn’t feel needed them and cartoony graphics.  After sampling the Wii’s version of Madden NFL 10 I moved onto the XBox 360 and hardly ever looked back.

So this time, I will wait a little.   Time will tell if I can avoid the temptation of purchasing the next XBox at launch, though.  I’ve become a bit of an XBox fanboy.