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Discussion What if the Wii U was portable?

pokeweeb3

pokeweeb3

Rattata
So, I don't think this is very well-known... but WAY back in 2011, Satoru Iwata said that Nintendo seriously considered making the Wii U Gamepad a portable device, that did not require a 30 feet connection to a base console:

www.ign.com

Wii U Was Almost a Portable - IGN

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata sheds light on the development of Wii U, the future of Wii, and software pricing for the company's next home console.
www.ign.com www.ign.com

"During the roundtable discussions there were such arguments about should we make it capable of being a standalone system or should we make it work only with the [base console] system," Iwata-san said. "We came to the conclusion that this controller is only going to show the images generated and processed by this hardware unit -- and sent from the hardware unit wirelessly. That means sharper graphics. A battery couldn't do that."

So if Nintendo had done this, we could have had a hybrid console years earlier, although it likely would have been much weaker than the Switch. It also may still have had dual-screen functionality, like the Wii U they ended up making (Iwata said that they had been thinking about two screens since 2007).

If Nintendo had released a hybrid Wii U in 2012, capable of being used as a standalone portable, do you think it would have been successful? And if so, how would it have affected the DS/3DS line, and their next console after the portable Wii U?
 
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They would have had to shrink it down significantly. As it is I think the Wii U gamepad was brilliant as someone who lived with roommates at the time. Like even six years into the Switch I spend 99% of my time with it close enough to the stand that it is functionally the same as a Wii U.
 
The Wii U would have to be less powerful in general to support that. Like more along the lines of the PS Vita.
 
If they'd released a hybrid portable in 2012 with the form of the Wii U GamePad, tech capabilities similar to PS Vita, and competing with their own 3DS from the year before? Quagmire, I guess.

Unless it was explicitly a "3DS Pro" that had a docked mode? It'd be no Switch, but at least it wouldn't be a self-competing mess.
 
GenOneCam said:
They would have had to shrink it down significantly.
Click to expand...
Well, I'm pretty sure the Gamepad would have looked quite different if it were portable. The Wii U's lack of portability meant that they didn't try to make it something you could carry around in a pocket or a bag.

Also, an early version of the Gamepad had circle pads like the 3DS. They probably would have kept those if it were portable.
 
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We almost got exactly what you’re asking for…



The goal with Wii U from the beginning was always to eventually turn it into a handheld.
 
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It would have been a bigger mess, I think. A Switch with the strength of two Wiis duct taped together trying to push 1080p graphics would have somehow led to worse third party support.

Maybe there is no universe where the Wii U was a success; it had to fail just to get to where Nintendo is now.
 
People already said that, but it would be basically a PS Vita. Gamepad, regardless of what form it would take, was always the deciding factor for Wii U failure. It wouldn't change anything.
 
How would it have worked? Would there still be a home console portion it could connect to, to project to a television? Like, just the same Wii U gamepad but with the ability to disconnect from the home unit and be taken on the go? A ton would've had to change. Couldn't use disks for example. Internal storage would've had to move from the console to the controller. Basically just a janky prototype of the Switch + dock I guess. Such poor implementation as the Wii U form factor and marketing might've poisoned the well for hybrids tbh, it's probably for the best that it didn't happen
 
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Brofield said:
It would have been a bigger mess, I think. A Switch with the strength of two Wiis duct taped together trying to push 1080p graphics would have somehow led to worse third party support.

Maybe there is no universe where the Wii U was a success; it had to fail just to get to where Nintendo is now.
Click to expand...
Maybe the ideal path would be wii hd after all around 2010-2011, no gamepad, bundled with pro controller. Then go to Switch.
 
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It would have compited with the 3DS, so a very weird concept there. I remember the first time I saw the Gamepad I thought it was a handheld system, but then I inmediatly realized that made no sense since the 3DS just released like 3 months ago.
 
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Satoru Iwata has already envisioned a consolidation of the handheld and console division since the GameCube.
 
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Oh, i remember this. Not gonna lie, i was a bit disappointing when i learned this back in the day.

Most likely, yeah, it would have been basically a PSVita, with no Wii BC and probably a wildly different focus. Basically, a Switch before the Switch.
 
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Rampo360 said:
Maybe the ideal path would be wii hd after all around 2010-2011, no gamepad, bundled with pro controller. Then go to Switch.
Click to expand...

'Bundled with a pro controller' isn't a Wii HD really, it's just a PS4, and without something major to distinguish themselves, they'd still get completely steamrolled, like they did the other times when all other things were largely equal. They needed to keep building on the Wii remote instead if they were going to go that direction. Probably something like the Joycons would have been the best decision (though it's easy to say that in retrospect).
 
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Ghostsonplanets said:
Gamepad, regardless of what form it would take, was always the deciding factor for Wii U failure. It wouldn't change anything.
Click to expand...
Honestly, I don't get why you think it "wouldn't change anything".

Before the Wii U was even released, a lot of people (including myself) were saying that the Gamepad should have been fully portable. The Nintendo Switch in handheld mode is basically a more powerful and fully portable Gamepad. When the Switch was revealed, a lot of people said "this is what the Wii U should have been from the start".

Would a portable Wii U have sold as well as the Switch? Very unlikely. But, I think just making it the first hybrid console would have made it sell significantly more.
 
pokeweeb3 said:
Honestly, I don't get why you think it "wouldn't change anything".

Before the Wii U was even released, a lot of people (including myself) were saying that the Gamepad should have been fully portable. The Nintendo Switch in handheld mode is basically a more powerful and fully portable Gamepad. When the Switch was revealed, a lot of people said "this is what the Wii U should have been from the start".

Would a portable Wii U have sold as well as the Switch? Very unlikely. But, I think just making it the first hybrid console would have made it sell significantly more.
Click to expand...
A portable Wii U would be no more powerful than the PS Vita while also directly competing with the 3DS. Make zero sense, wouldn’t be an exciting jump in graphics and Nintendo would stay in SD development once again, which would hurt them even more once they needed to jump to HD development. This portable Wii U would also be a pariah, as no one would even bother to support it with home console games. At best you would see some cross-dev games with Vita or 3DS. The tech for a portable Wii U wasn't there in 2012 and what we got was, honestly, better than a fully portable, even if still being the deciding factor of Wii U failure.

You know what Wii U should have been? A AMD x86 4x Cores + a DX11 compliant GPU around 600GFLOPs and 4GB of RAM. And with an HD Wiimote, better than motion plus, instead of Gamepad. That would give the Wii U much better prospects.
 
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pokeweeb3 said:
Honestly, I don't get why you think it "wouldn't change anything".

Before the Wii U was even released, a lot of people (including myself) were saying that the Gamepad should have been fully portable. The Nintendo Switch in handheld mode is basically a more powerful and fully portable Gamepad. When the Switch was revealed, a lot of people said "this is what the Wii U should have been from the start".

Would a portable Wii U have sold as well as the Switch? Very unlikely. But, I think just making it the first hybrid console would have made it sell significantly more.
Click to expand...

The Switch is what the Wii U would have been ... If you had a time machine and could rapidly accelerate half a decades technological advancements out of thin air.

The Switch couldn't have happened in 2012 because technology literally wasn't there yet.
 
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