Topic: Bad news for the Wii U eShop.

[tendoboy1984]

We've known about Wii Mode and why it exist for a while now. The WAD files used for the Virtual Console games are specifically designed for the Wii, which is why you're forced to run through this mode. It's a relative nightmare splitting the Wii Shop Channel and the Wii U's eShop, especially if they end up asking people to buy the same titles once more on Virtual Console.

I'm not sure how temporary it is either. Nintendo doesn't have a great way to transfer licenses from Wii to Wii. So moving them from Wii to Wii U, so you can load Virtual Console games directly from the Wii U (enabling Game Pad play, easier access, etc), in the future is not going to be a cake walk.

At this point though, backwards compatibility is going to be tougher and tougher each generation. Not just for Nintendo, but for everyone moving forward. It's a scary part about the digital future we face on consoles, at least for me.

Nintendo could have easily fixed this problem by making the Wii U run those "WAD" files natively. Again, the 3DS can run DSiWare games natively; no need to boot the system in "DSi Mode".

The Wii U has the Wii hardware built into it, so why does it need to emulate the Wii's OS?

[MegaByte]

3DS boots into DSi mode for DSiWare games, but yeah, you don't need to navigate a second OS to do it.

[tendoboy1984]

3DS boots into DSi mode for DSiWare games, but yeah, you don't need to navigate a second OS to do it.

That's my point. The Wii U has the Wii's hardware built into it. Therefore, backwards compatiblity should be automatic, like the 3DS (and every other BC system before it). Why should the Wii U need to emulate the Wii's OS when running Wii games?

[MegaByte]

Because Wii games require Wii OS functions and drivers to operate. However, that doesn't mean they couldn't have bypassed the whole menu system.

[shingi_70]

I'm going to wait until june of next year and hope this gets resolved. Not having a wii one of the big reasons I was excited for the Wii U was the VC and wiiware stuff I missed.

But this is the type of the stuff that is making me wait. I can't see my self paying to be in two seprate eco systems for one console.  Would rather them find some way to do it like the 3DS does with the dsi stuff.

[NWR_insanolord]

It's funny, because I think Wii backwards compatibility is a much bigger deal to the average person than DSiWare compatibility. This screams of Nintendo just not having the time to implement it properly. I do wonder if they'll go back to it later on. Even the GameCube compatibility on Wii was handled better than this.

[MrPhishfood]

In the Iwata Asks concerning the hardware it was mentioned that the hardware for Wii backwards compatibility is also shared by the Wii U. I think this means the console cannot be in Wii U mode and be using Wii backwards compatibility at the same time, or at least there are some big hurdles to overcome before that happens.

[NWR_insanolord]

The same is true with the 3DS and DS backwards compatibility, and that works a lot better than what they're doing here.

[Kairon]

I'm hoping that somehow in the future they give us an easy way to enter and exit Wii Mode from the regular Wii U Mode and integrate the two shops. That sort of seamless user experience would be very appealing, even if we never get to play Wii VC games on the GamePad.

Honestly though, the most disappointing thing here for me is that my 32 GB SD Card can't be used as Wii U storage space, and thus I need to buy an external USB Hard Drive sooner rather than later. Urgh. I have no idea how to shop for a good Wii U compatible USB external Harddrive other than "Is it 1 TB?" and "Does it support USB 2.0 out of the box?"

[Disco Stu]

I was really looking forward to having save states with some of my Wii Virtual Console games...doesn't look it's gonna happen now.

[ThePerm]

im sure wii mode will be better then gamecube mode. They can always update the os for wii, but not for gamecube.
It probably won't be a big deal, it would be like going into a wii channel.

[Mop it up]

I have no idea how to shop for a good Wii U compatible USB external Harddrive other than "Is it 1 TB?" and "Does it support USB 2.0 out of the box?"

Isn't that all you need to know? Aren't they all compatible?

[rlse9]

A little research on the internet showed that read speeds are a legitimate reason for not using SD cards for additional storage on the WiiU.  The majority of SD cards out there (the ones that are on sale every Black Friday) are Class 2 cards, which are only rated to read/write at 2 megabytes per second.  Even the more expensive Class 10 cards guarantee only 10 megabytes per second.  A typical hard drive has speeds in the 80-100 megabyte range.  USB drives seem to be somewhere in the middle, in the 20-30 megabytes per second range.

[tendoboy1984]

Yet despite the slow read/write speeds, both the Wii and 3DS can save and load game data from SD cards. In fact, the 3DS requires an SD card for many of its features. So why does the Wii U restrict SD card usage?

[Mop it up]

The Wii has tiny file sizes and the 3DS is a portable and too small for a hard drive. The Wii U will have retail game downloads that could be up to 50GB in size, though will probably be more in the 8-25GB range. That's a lot larger than the Wii's 40MB limit.