There are some hints the Wii U might only support one of the new controllers at any one time. What would that mean for the world of Nintendo gaming?
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/blog/26653
The life of a Nintendo Fanboy is a stressful one. I was absolutely giddy with the Nintendo Conference, but hours later I was agonizing over a troubling omission regarding Nintendo's new console: "Why are there no examples of two Wii U controllers being used together?" Out of all the examples on the floor, or in the videos, or in the screenshots, why is only one Wii U controller ever shown at any one time?
This is an important question! If The Wii U truly cannot support more than one tablet controller, my dream of one-console local-multiplayer offline Animal Crossing is doomed! In fact, a lot of the pie-in-the-sky "everyone has their own gameplay screen" theories that my fellow gamers have come up with wouldn't come true either.
Others on the internet have had this same worry occur to them, and the tidbits of info netizens have dug up do nothing to dispel thoughts of a one tablet-controller future.
For example, CVG quotes a Nintendo spokesperson saying, "Both the controller and the console will be sold as one unit. You won't be able to buy the controller alone." If Nintendo doesn't allow consumers to buy additional Wii U controllers, that sort of shoots a huge gaping hole in any possibility that a game would be designed to use two of them.
It isn't any more encouraging to find out that, according to Kotaku, Nintendo's own Katsuya Eguchi, who has worked on the successful Wii franchise of titles as well as my beloved Animal Crossing, is only "considering options" regarding two Wii U controllers, a concept that is currently just "an interesting idea."
Well, geez, what could keep one of Nintendo's own EAD Game Producers from chomping at the bit to deploy a game across two of his own company's new Wii U controllers?
There's a bunch of theories already forming out there, but my personal hunch is that the Wii U may not be able to push lag-less graphics to more than one wireless controller at a time. The Wii U controller is not a 3DS, it doesn't have real processing power inside of it. It is little more than a glorified monitor, depending on technological wizardry to display HD-style graphics without any cpu guts of its own. Think about that, this is future-tech! It's an entire cloud computing setup in your living room! Wireless! At a mass market price! Without lag! That's stupendous! And... maybe not ready for streaming to 2 devices just yet... however disappointing that may be.
Well, nothing's confirmed just yet, so there's still some hope out there. Admittedly I know nothing about the actual tech Nintendo is using for their wireless graphics, but the fanboy in me is spinning multiple hopeful solutions. For example, what if Nintendo streamed only SD graphics to the controllers, then the Wii U console could have enough bandwidth for at least two controller's right? Or what if you could connect a second Wii U controller via a USB cable, relieving any wireless streaming graphics bottleneck if that's the problem?
Or of course, Nintendo could come out tomorrow and show off a two Wii U controller setup and this will all look pretty silly.
But if not... well, after thinking about it a bit, I'm less worried than before. The fact is that this would just reduce some gaming overlap between the different hardware platforms out there. Think about it: the Wii and Wii U can already support local multiplayer via a TV's single screen, whether shared or split. And the 3DS is already Nintendo's platform for games where everyone has their own screen, like Mario Kart 3DS. Ultimately, if individual screens for each player are necessary, maybe Nintendo can focus on selling 3DS' to everyone, and if the multiplayer paradigm is a single shared screen, or two asymmetrical screens, then they can focus on the Wii U. This way each console and its games has clear roles and niches to fill.
In fact, this clear and simple focus for each platform is hinted at in this Shigeru Miyamoto quote from the recent Wii U Iwata Asks interview:
"With the Nintendo 3DS and DS systems, you play by not needing to show your screen to anyone else. And with Wii games everyone plays while watching the same screen. With Wii U, you are able to combine both, the ability to display information that no one else can see, and the screen that everyone watches while playing, to come up with new ways to play."
If true, it's definitely a dampener to think that only one Wii U controller will ever be in action at a time, but it seems to make sense in terms of the philosophies of the different hardware platforms.
And besides, there's still a way every player in a multiplayer game can use a Wii U controller... they could each have their own Wii U console and play over a capable, modern online network. Oh boy oh boy, I hope that's true, it'd solve not just this issue, but a whole slew of others as well!
...or... and I just had this idea... what if the Wii U could support local wireless LAN? Everyone could just bring their consoles, plug em in, forego a TV and switch on their Wii U controllers and... be still my beating fanboy heart...
Topic: My Thoughts: Two Wii U Controllers at Once Possible? (Read 34504 times)
