Wii U Might Support Two Tablet Controllers After All

[deckai]

Gimmicks Gimmicks everywhere...and not a hardcore game in sight...

What, you mean, like Colonial Marines, Darksiders 2 or Metro: Last Light? Yeah, you're right these are all causal games....

Basically this whole thing is Nintendo capitalising on the success of the DS and saying

"Hey people liked that whole two/touch screen thing, why don't we take that concept?... and make it bigger!"

The whole 'controller' is probably going to be unwieldy, and if they don't take ergonomics into account, will just be too cumbersome for lengthy play sessions.
Unless you play for 3+ hours on a tablet straight, then I guess you're used to it (and are also sad).

So what? The two display thing worked, why shouldn't they expand on a proven idea?

On the controller, first, there are no reliable sources on how much it really weights, second, the feedback by people who had the chance to play with it was consistently positive. So all your assumptions are based on bias.

But I guess, being a little open-minded is to much to ask for.

Now see what you made me do... I promised to never post anything anymore in Nintendo related threads... shame on you...

 

[JokerboyJordan]

There are no reliable sources on how much it really weights, second, the feedback by people who had the chance to play with it was consistently positive.

Link or it didn't happen.

Didn't you just contradict yourself by saying there's no reliable sources for weight, yet there are sources that are positive?
So no one who has played with it has noted the weight? Light, Heavy etc.?

 

[Xanthious]

Everyone likes to act like the folks at Nintendo are so incredibly stupid for not appealing to the tiny niche of gamers that this forum is built around, but Nintendo execs are clearly not stupid and this shows in their work on the Wii U. They don't intend to give their new stake in the casual market up for the next generation just to come crawling back to "hardcore" gamers. They've made it very clear they intend to reach out to both....and if we scorn them out of pointless "revenge" for the Wii's heavy casual focus, well....guess who they'll happily go right back to prioritizing, at no real loss to them? Nintendo's execs have the hardcore market by the gonads here. They don't NEED our money any more, because they have casual sales now....yet at E3 they advertise a system which has the support of most major third-party devs, a few of which have already hinted at the strong possibility of exclusive hardcore titles for the system. Nintendo can easily go right back to dismissing us and still make a boatload, but now they're dangling the shinies in front of you and I, and saying "don't you want to try it just once, hm?". And you just know that, for many, that's all it's going to take to get them lined back up for a first-day purchase.

That would be all well and good if Nintendo could still depend on the casual market. But they can't because they no longer have the casual market. The casuals are done with Nintendo as evidenced by the fact they are losing money for the first time in thirty years. Going back to riding the casuals jocks will do fuck all to replicate the success they managed during the Wiis early days.

 

[deckai]

Link or it didn't happen.

Didn't you just contradict yourself by saying there's no reliable sources for weight, yet there are sources that are positive?
So no one who has played with it has noted the weight? Light, Heavy etc.?

Really? You want to go there?

*sight*

"For a controller as large as the Wii U's, weight becomes a concern, but it actually felt comfortable to hold."

http://m.ign.com/articles/1173644


"I went in thinking about all the negatives the controller may have and came out with mostly positive comments."

http://www.nintendogal.com/2011/06/13/e3-2011-impressions-wii-u-controller/6904/


"I didn't really notice a big issue with the controller. It actually feels smaller in the hands than what you'd initially think." by Roo

http://clanofthegraywolf.com/e3-2011-nintendo-wii-u-hands-impressions

"Although one of the initial concerns with the U Controller was its relatively large size and potentially heavy weight, we were pleasantly surprised with the controller's comfort"

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/nintendo-wii-u-wii-u-wii-e3,news-11463.html

Should I go on?


I said there is no reliable source on the weight since nobody had the chance to weight it(They could only feel the weight which isn't the most reliable way to measure weight), also it's still a prototype so the weight is bound to change BUT the overall feedback was positive... see quotes above.

 

[CrystalShadow]

im still wondering why they are still calling it a wii u. if its touch screen why not call it the touch u

Firstly, that's even worse than their name.

Secondly, I think they want to emphasise it's relation to the Wii. The touchscreen aside it's backwards compatible, AND supports all the Wii's accessories as well.

As to the story itself... Considering how many people have complained about there only being one screen, I can see why they're doing their best to see if they can improve on that at all.

someone forgot their /sarcasm tag

Ah, sarcasm. The thing that relies in large part on tone of voice and context for it's effect. There's no reason at all it doesn't work so well in text now is there? ;p

 

[shrekfan246]

no they should name it the wii touch u

how about no gimmicky controller at all and just normal wired/wireless controllers?

I wonder how long it's going to take before Nintendo releases a home console with a standard control pad as the default pad. Other than that...at least the tablet has the right looking buttons. I'd like to see them make games where you waggle the thing.

The last time Nintendo released a console with a "normal" controller, it was the Gamecube. Now, I don't know how well everyone else recalls history, but the Gamecube was absolutely crushed in sales by the Xbox (which had a terrible controller when it was first released) and the PS2 (which was actually inferior as far as hardware was concerned). Nintendo has been ostracizing third-party developers for close to ten years now, it didn't start with the Wii. The Gamecube had a decent game library, sure, but it was nothing compared to the PS2, and it had none of the functionality either of the other two systems had.

To put it simply: If Nintendo were to simply develop a "normal" console with a "normal" controller, everyone would shrug and ask why they should buy it over a PS3, Xbox 360, or the newest iterations of both that will be surfacing in the next few years. Nintendo is a very solid first-party game developer, but all appearances say that they know they can't compete directly with Sony and Microsoft, and really they shouldn't. We don't need three separate companies vying to be the top dog. Nintendo has been the only large company in the last six years that wasn't afraid to actually try something new (questionable practices of Nintendo of America aside) and seeing them crumble because they tried directly entering the war Sony and Microsoft have already been in for ten years would be a sad day for the gaming industry, no matter what the vocal minority of gamers on The Escapist might think of the company.

 

[DustinOffAClassic]

Unless someone replaced all of Nintendo's CEOs brains with wheels of cheese when we weren't looking, I'm sure the final design will support multiple controllers.

 

[Callate]

Oh, have we entered a bizarro universe where the Wii didn't grossly outsell its competition and win last generation's console wars so badly that the PS3 and 360 both came up with motion control gimmicks just to win back a slice of the audience it had lost? Just checking, because I'm pretty sure they did win.

Oh, they certainly did win in the beginning; I'm not contesting that. And for the record, in my own home games are played on the Wii and the PC. But it's arguable that that argues against hardware as a selling point; the Wii was unquestionably less powerful than either of its HD rivals. It cleaned their clock for a number of reasons: it had the lowest selling point, it advertised itself as family friendly, and it expressed that it was offering a new and different experience than its rivals; one that would have people moving around their living rooms imitating real-world motions, rather than sitting in a stupor in front of a television committing tawdry acts of violence with their thumbs. That was partly about hardware innovation, yes, but only partly.

If we move into the present day, part of what has hastened Nintendo into the next hardware cycle is that Wii sales have fallen sharply while the 360 and PS3 have finally started to come into their own. To a great extent, Nintendo has carried the Wii on first-party titles; the developers who have tried to make AAA Wii games have most frequently been punished for their efforts, and around the edges, the Wii software shelves have been allowed to overflow with binware. The Kinect has undoubtedly moved some 360s, but much of that has, again, been about impressing on people the experiences they could have with the hardware. Titles like Dance Central and Kinectimals have helped move the Kinect, while Sony's Move, to my eye, has been kind of buried in the background... in part because Sony didn't have a strong idea what they wanted to do with the new hardware, other than show their investors that they were taking Nintendo's past successes into account.

What I said was

hardware alone doesn't sell the system.

I'd stick by that. The Virtual Boy, the Sega Saturn, the N-Gage- they were all new hardware. But without a strong vision of what you plan to do with your hardware, what you want your customers to do with the hardware and what they will want to do with it, you fail. And I honestly hope that Nintendo fully recognizes that. You could have Star Trek: The Next Generation's holodeck, but if the only program that came with it was solitaire, it wouldn't be long before you decided to just go back to playing with real-world cards.

 

[Geoffrey Harrell]

When i saw the Wii U for the first time, the silliest thing about it seemed to be the fact that the sqeul station to the Wii was not going to be able to have these neat controllers for four people. I mean, This is Nintendo we are talking about. They are all about the party games for many people to play at once. I think i saw a demo for a chase game for the Wii U, but as far as four player games go it seems you would have to use four wiimotes. So what's the point of having this 'awesome' looking controller if all your buddies can't use it when you do? surely some people will play the Wii U alone, but i'm talking about in the room multiplayer. To me, two tablet controllers still isn't enough. they shouldn't have come up some such a gimmicky system.

 

[Mahorfeus]

"Even if [allowing a second tablet] affects framerate, as a developer and player, I don't care. It needs to work. Developers will design appropriate games for this. If you're building a quiz game you're not going to give a shit about the framerate."

So in other words, thanks to all the QQers, it's practically guaranteed that their developer emphasis is going to be on casual games. Oh, the irony.

I have high hopes for the Wii U - it seems to be the underdog, but with no next-gen competitors in sight, it might actually do well. So far it only has Nintendo flagships and ports, but I'm sure it'll pick up some support along the way.