Gameranx has published a helpful breakdown of the notable releases of 2013 by system, and the big takeaway is: Wii U owners, I hope you like watching TVii. There simply aren’t any major exclusive titles to get excited about, other than maybe Pikmin 3. Wii U, which distinctly lacks a killer bundled application like Wii Sports, is going to have to get by on whatever good will is out there for the next twelve months, because the games simply aren’t there, mini-, multiplayer, and otherwise. Given potential hardware announcements from Microsoft and Sony, I think that Nintendo is significant danger of losing the message and the momentum for this console cycle before it has really gotten started.

Sony, meanwhile, appears to be hitting the late-cycle stride that it found years ago in the late life of the PlayStation 2. The Last of Us, Ni No Kuni, and the new God of War games are all big exclusives, and if The Last Guardian somehow sneaks into the last quarter of this year, 2013 might be remembered as a renaissance for the system.