Hardware What was the "central concept" of the Wii U?

[Gamecocks625]

It didn’t help that the Wii branding was heavily used in a variety of games and peripherals. So much so that Wii U as a name brand could’ve easily been confused with a peripheral for the Wii, especially for the target audience of the Wii

 

[GamerJM]

I think it was supposed to be asymmetric play, with off-screen being a big additional selling point. If you're wondering what the difference between those two is, asymmetric play was supposed to be like motion controls where it was the hook that leads people to "get" the console, and off-screen play was more like something like backwards compatibility where it's a big omnipresent additional bonus that won't appeal to everyone who buys the console but will be a big deal for some.

As for how they expected asymmetric to be the central hook and selling point of the console, look at how Nintendo Land utilizes the two screens in various different ways. I think Nintendo expected developers to do similar things in their own games, but almost none of them did. They also expected it to be something that clicks for a lot of mainstream consumers, but it sort of did the inverse, where the only people who thought it was cool and saw value in it were their own base of enthusiasts.

 

[AllEchse]

I think it was supposed to be asymmetric play, with off-screen being a big additional selling point. If you're wondering what the difference between those two is, asymmetric play was supposed to be like motion controls where it was the hook that leads people to "get" the console, and off-screen play was more like something like backwards compatibility where it's a big omnipresent additional bonus that won't appeal to everyone who buys the console but will be a big deal for some.

As for how they expected asymmetric to be the central hook and selling point of the console, look at how Nintendo Land utilizes the two screens in various different ways. I think Nintendo expected developers to do similar things in their own games, but almost none of them did. They also expected it to be something that clicks for a lot of mainstream consumers, but it sort of did the inverse, where the only people who thought it was cool and saw value in it were their own base of enthusiasts.

I think the console would have had a bigger focus on party games then, cause asymmetric play would have really only been special in local multiplayer.
Cause with Online you wouldn't need 2 screens for most asymmetric multiplayer concepts.
I think it was basically just supposed to be a DS connected to a TV and the screens are obviously also independent of each other because of that.
But even on the DS many games just used the second screen for minimaps and inventories, which may add some quality of life, and may be cool, but is unnecessary in the end.
So it's not that hard to replace in most games, otherwise we wouldn't have had so many WiiU Ports on Switch.
And you would need to be able to play on one screen anyway for Off-TV play.

 

[juuso]

I think it was basically just supposed to be a DS connected to a TV and the screens are obviously also independent of each other because of that.

This was always my impression as well. And it's honestly just a bad idea, it's so much more cumbersome to move your eyes between the gamepad and TV than on the two screens of the DS.

 

[Nmanic]

The central concept of WiiU is being really into it while all your friends tell you why they aren't interested because they heard it sucks ass


(Based on a true story)

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

It was in no way asymmetric gameplay, how is that winning the poll?

That was a great idea and great feature in games that utilized it, but many didn't.

Off-TV play is the obvious answer here. Other features were secondary, and software support proves this.

That a feature is most commonly used doesn't necessary make it the most important thing. It means it was simpler to implement, especially for multiplatform games.