Potential wiiu problem...

[monojono]

So, the two big features the wiiu has to tempt us away from the other consoles are: 1.A touchscreen in the controller, to provide extra info/input & 2.The ability to play games on the controller without the tv

...except games will only be able to have one of these features each, because they are mutually exclusive. If your game requires you to use the extra screen to play, you won't be able to play the game with only the controller screen. Which means it will be advantageous to designers to make the touchscreen uses optional extras, which makes it likely that the touchscreen is not going to be used for anything innovative or exciting.

The wiiu needs to be seen as more than a 360/ps3 with a gimmick, but I'm really struggling to think of how the touchscreen will bring anything interesting to the table (in contrast to the wii, which had everyone excited about possibilities when it was first announced). Anyone more optimistic got any ideas about what the controller could bring to gaming?

 

[RatRace123]

The touch screen could be used to map a whole new UI, customized by the user. It could bring strategy games and PC control style RPGs to consoles in a way that actually works.
That's the short version of it anyway.

 

[Valagetti]

Its going to be interesting for sure! Meh, I think nintendo will release it and have mutliple patches, updates and refunds. But I don't think casual gaming is killing us as a whole. Maybe they can take a few pointers from apple... ha, though I'd never say that.

 

[Moriarty]

The touch screen could be used to map a whole new UI, customized by the user. It could bring strategy games and PC control style RPGs to consoles in a way that actually works.
That's the short version of it anyway.

That sounds like a really stupid idea to me. If you want to look at your inventory/map/objectives you're going to pause the game anyway. Where's the benefit in forcing people to look down on their controllers to use these menus if there's nothing interesting going on in the main screen anyway.

 

[Davroth]

For me, the big feature Nintendo got in store this year was having third party support, but that's just me.

 

[monojono]

The touch screen could be used to map a whole new UI, customized by the user. It could bring strategy games and PC control style RPGs to consoles in a way that actually works.
That's the short version of it anyway.

That sounds like a really stupid idea to me. If you want to look at your inventory/map/objectives you're going to pause the game anyway. Where's the benefit in forcing people to look down on their controllers to use these menus if there's nothing interesting going on in the main screen anyway.

And like I said, if you do that the game won't work when you play on just the controller. So if a developer spends time and money on a new, touchscreen UI they lose a key feature of the console. Not exactly encouraging.

 

[Wintermoot]

maybe it could do the same thing as the VMU, displaying information that would otherwise require you to access the main menu.
Or work as a alternative to the main menu.