why would you mod a Wii to play roms? Why not just buy a cheap PC and hook it up to your tv for that dedicated purpose?

I hated the Wii... You could count the good third party titles on one hand... and here Nintendo does it again by releasing last gen tech specs for their new system, thinking that by rushing it out the door before Sony and Microsoft reveal their plans they'll be able to sell a ton before people realize how underpowered it is. And they're probably right, but in the end, it'll be the Wii 1 all over again (which is great for Nintendo, because they somehow sold a billion units). Nintendo will release their awesome exclusive titles, which will all be obnoxiously hampered by whatever the Wii U's dominant motion/touchscreen control gimmick is (you shake the controller to make mario attack! It's so much better than pressing a button!), and third party developers will focus on the systems with more power (and actual online capabilities).

Apparently the online network for the Wii U is still a mystery, but all we know for certain is that private messages will take up to 30 minutes to deliver because of their extreme content filtering process.

I really wish Nintendo would just become a third party developer when it comes to the home console systems, and otherwise stick to the handheld market. But since they seem to have discovered a formula here where they sell shitty outdated hardware to people and make a large profit off each system sold, it's unlikely they'll stop. Maybe if the Wii U completely flops.