Wii Controller Compatibility and Wii U

After reading that the Wii controllers are 100% compatible with the Wii U, I want to say: Thank You Nintendo.

I am cursed with old man's hands. Meaning, when I play a PS3 shooter against my 15 year old son, he kills me. Literally. Because I. Can't. Aim. Not even to save my virtual life. I push up on the thumbstick and the reticule flies over my target's head; I push down and it goes to his feet. I shift left and am about to shoot the rock he's hiding behind; I push right and watch the screen fill with blood because I'm taking so much time to get it right that my son had the time to polish his bullets before shooting. He can just stand there because he's not in danger even if I was holding a bazooka.

Leading me to my favorite recent purchase: the integrated gun controller, the Wii Crossfire. (See it on Amazon here.)

I tried a simple plastic shell pistol, but beyond on-rails games, they are useless because you can't easily reach the various buttons. The Wii Crossfire isn't a shell, it's an actual controller, with buttons and the directional pad within reach of your thumb. (Minus and plus are on the side and not so easy to reach but I've learned to live with it. Game makers: please code button remapping into your games.) I bought this controller just to play Wii GoldenEye. It is absolutely phenomenal and immersive.

The only trouble was, after a while I was reacting so furiously that I started to overwhelm the game. I moved too fast for the Wii. It started to bug me. I started playing shooters with the PS Move and started to salivate at what my Wii Crossfire could do when there was a lot of horsepower to back up the game I'm playing. I resigned myself to not being able to use it with the next Nintendo console.

So: Thank you Nintendo. And developers: please please please code Wiimote support into your Wii U games. Nintendo stumbled upon something so true when it comes to video gaming: the controller as much an integral part of the experience as the graphics and sound.

Explaining the Title

I wanted to explain the title of this blog. I'm not a fanboy, or a hard-core gamer. I've finished Twilight Princess but never got more than 1 quarter through Wind Waker. I love meekakitty's Link song (go here). I love games and love reading about them. Like many I'm smitten with Nintendo and was wetting my pants waiting for the Wii U announcement.

If not a fanboy, what am I? I asked myself. The answer: A Nintendo Lifer.

Wii U and more than 1 controller

I started reading a post on nintendoworldreport.com about how the writer and others are becoming concerned with the lack of mention or demonstration of the use of a second Wii U tablet controller. I noticed this too and was hoping for myself and Nintendo that the machine wasn't handicapped with such a restriction.

 

At first I was as worried as the author of the post, but upon thinking about it, I'm not so worried after all. Ignoring how the Big N is transmitting to the tablet controllers, here's why:

• Starting with the obvious, it seems like Nintendo would have to have some pretty serious CPU/GPU stuffed into its white round box in order to support many tablet controllers. But think about it: if you are playing a 4 player game, isn't the screen broken into 4 parts? Assuming that the resolution of the video being sent to the tablet is much less than what's on your screen (despite its reported high quality), one of two things can be done: the resolution of the video sent to each individual tablet can be reduced ever more, or the same video is sent to each tablet controller, which only shows your quarter.
• The same could be said if you were to not using a t.v. at all, with 2 tablet controllers. With a fighting game, for example, you normally use the same t.v. to see both players at the same time. Video could be beamed to both tablet controllers at the same time, with input being unique to each controller. Pushing this further, if you are not using a t.v., there's is plenty of processing power available to send lower-rez video to 2 different tablet controllers. 
• For a game like Madden Football, it is a dream to think about how you can set up your plays by touching options on the tablet controller, with the action appearing on your t.v. In this circumstance, the processing power needed to set up plays is far less than what would be needed if the video image was live action. In this case, I don't see why the WiiU wouldn't be able to beam to 2 tablet controllers and accept input from 2 different tablet controllers at the same time. There might be a bit of lag, sure, but it's not twitch-critical.
• A twitch-critical shooting game might be different. Not a lot of games have 4-player shooting modes these days, but if GoldenEye Wii was moved to Wii U, perhaps some features (but not all) would be available. For example, you might not be able to send 4 different vids to 4 tablet controllers, but the scope of sniper might appear on your tablet controller instead of on the screen.
• From the opposite direction -- cost -- without knowing how much a Wii U tablet controller will cost, it's hard to say if that's a good reason not to invest in allowing multiple Wii U tablet controllers on a Wii U. One thing is for sure -- if I have a Wii U, and my friend has a Wii U, I can easily bring my controller to his house. If the Wii U is limited to syncing only one controller, it's a missed opportunity. Besides, some of us have jobs :)

The potential is great so I hope I'm right in some respect. If you know something about bluetooth or other wireless video subjects that shed light on how much lag-free video the Wii U could send over the air, please write me.