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 :)

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