Opinion: Wii on Wii U not for me
So one of the best features about the Wii U has to be the backwards compatibility of not only Wii software but also most hardware as well. You can play all your Wii games on the Wii U, you can use the 9 Wii Remotes you bought over the years and you might want to dust off that Balance Board as well. It’s a great feature.
It goes further than that though, Nintendo has confirmed that you’ll be able to transfer all of your WiiWare, Virtual Console games and Mii’s over from the Wii to the Wii U. It’s great news if your Wii is maybe getting a little old, you want to sell it or give it to family and of course get your content on your fancy new Nintendo account. How that all will work remains to be seen.
But that’s not what I have a problem with, it’s to do with the Miiverse or the lack there-of.
You see when the Wii U runs Wii software, downloadable and retail it reverts to ‘Wii mode’. This basically does what it sounds like and turns the Wii U into a regular old Wii, the news was revealed in an interview with Nintendo America’s Bill Trinnen and while he doesn’t elaborate this could mean a couple of things.
This ‘Wii mode’ might be as bad as what happens when you play GameCube games in the Wii. The system basically turns into a Gamecube, the hardware just switches mode and that’s it you’ve basically got a Gamecube in a pretty shell. Nintendo have come further since 2006 though and we’ve seen with the Nintendo 3DS when it plays DS games that the 3DS operating system is somewhat available with the home button overlay (you can quit the game, not the entire thing) and all the hardware such as the touch screen and the wireless remains intact.
So how does this affect Miiverse? Well if the Wii U is running in ‘Wii Mode’ then it’s likely not going to be one of the greatest selling points of the Wii U. Reggie Fils-Aime himself says that Miiverse and the social network aspect of the Wii U will be the killer app of the Wii U and I agree. I can’t wait to get the Wii U for the HD graphics, the new controller and tons of new ways to play for sure. The main thing I’m looking forward to is playing games with people, sharing what I do with people, talking to and interacting with Vooks readers but also people on Twitter, Facebook and my real life friends. Something I’ve never really been able to do on a Nintendo console.
While I’ve played games like Mario Kart 7 and Animal Crossing online with others, we’ve never really felt connected.
The other point is that Virtual Console games, WiiWare games and Wii retail games won’t play on the Wii U GamePad for the reasons above either.
Which brings me to my point, finally. I don’t see any reason to bring my thousands of dollars of Wii content to the Wii U if it’s going nullify a huge part of the Wii U console, one of the parts I’m most looking forward too.
Perhaps the 1GB of ram Nintendo have allocated for the Wii U operating system will mean this won’t happen, but who knows. We might not know until day one. Just think about that before you chuck your Wii into the cupboard of history.
this is a silly article lol so pointless lol…
Thanks for your constructive criticism.
Does that mean you would prefer to not play any of your Wii content or are you going to have two Wiis and two sensor bars and two set of wii motes etc?
I don’t understand, if you are going to play Wii games, does it matter if its on a Wii or Wii U? By playing a Wii game on the Wii U, do you loose anything you would have had if you were playing it on the Wii?
However, not having the Miiverse support for Wii games would be disappointing but understandable.
The 3DS backwards compatibility is a little disappointing, I really would like to access the menu functions while playing older games.
I don’t understand why the emulator can’t be wrapped with a 3ds or Wii u layer? I do find it annoying that all 3ds features are effectively switched off when I play a ds game, yet the VC games are properly wrapped and act like a 3ds app. I fear same will happen in wii u – pop in wii game, all wii u features switched off. There must be a good reason that the emulator is not properly wrapped to act like an app and not switch off the features
The difference between VC games on the 3DS and DS games on the 3DS is that why the Virtual Console game is emulated the DS games are actually running in ‘DS mode’. The CPU design of the 3DS is pretty much the same as the DS just clocked higher. When you play a DS game it downclocks it.
I found it annoying on the weekend when was playing Pokemon Black 2 and then walked around all of Melbourne and didn’t get a single StreetPass. Why? Because StreetPass doesn’t run in DS mode. Derp.
I don’t really understand the point of this article, having the Wii games on the Wii U doesn’t stop ANY of those features. It’s not like they don’t work anymore, just when you are running one of them. I wouldn’t expect them to make them work retroactively, why would you?
If it means running everything from one console, than what does it matter? It means you can use Wii games via an HDMI connection.
If it’s anything like the GC they might drop support entirely a year later, although the Wii and Wii U share common components-something we haven’t really seen before with Nintendo, (but Sony have done it).
I wouldn’t expect Nintendo to make them work retroactively, but if the Miiverse is going to be the ‘social network for gamers’ then I don’t want it to be cut off if I’m playing VC, WiiWare or Wii games.
You wouldn’t want your iPhone to stop receiving calls or notifications if you’re playing a game would you?
Also since I can’t play the WiiWare and VC games on the GamePad I don’t see the point of transferring them over. (Yet)
Gamepad support for WiiWare games would be unfeasible for the sole reason that many games rely on motion controls (and developers won’t go through the trouble of reprogramming or otherwise modifying their old games to accommodate the gamepad when the game is functioning perfectly fine in its originally released form). Gamepad support for Virtual Console games however, is certainly something that I think that Nintendo would consider implementing at some point.
While I disagree with both Reggie and you VOOK in that I don’t think the killer app of the Wii U will be the social stuff, I do agree in that I also won’t be transferring my Wii VC games over unless/until they decide to do it properly.
Killer apps for consoles are games, I haven’t seen anything from the Wii U to change my mind.
But damn if not being able to play Super Mario Bros 3 on my pad doesn’t suck. If Vigil can get Darksiders 2 running on the pad in less than a day, then surely Nintendo can get the emulator running on the pad. Also, it’s about time that we got an account system and we didn’t have to fix our VC games for every seperate piece of Nintendo hardware.
Ehhhhh? This article doesn’t make sense. You’re complaining that you can’t play Wii games on the gamepad and miiverse? But you can’t do that on the Wii anyway. Are you saying you’d rather not play those games you own, or keep two wii’s when one has the function of both. This is completely bogus :/
I’d rather keep my WiiWare, VC games and Wii Games played on the Wii and not lose my constant connection to the Miiverse.
Also since I can’t play the WiiWare and VC games on the GamePad I don’t see the point of transferring them over.
Because there’s no reason not to :/ Otherwise you’re just needlessly juggling two consoles when you need only use one.
The 3DS sort of does have a ‘DS mode’, specifically when you use download play for a DS game.
Yeah when you’re running a DS game is switches to DS mode. Turns off the OS, Streetpass, Spotpass!
I think you make a really good point Vook. The streetpass and spotpass functionalities of the 3DS are disabled when you play a DS game. it’s for this reason alone that I don’t play DS games in it when I go out in public.
If Miiverse has similar functionality that I’d want it to do at all times, and playing a Wii game blocks that functionality, I honestly see no point in playing a Wii game in it.
I also can’t see why they can’t update at least VC titles to be Wii U functional.
Anywho, What’s a Playstation Eye, Kinect and two wireless sensors in front of my TV going to hurt? 🙂
I can definitely see how this can be an issue but I suppose it’s more down to just how much you will end up using Wii content. Im guessing this will be an issue at first but as more Wii U titles come out and usage of original Wii content demonises then it won’t be such a deal breaker.
It’s not the best situation to have but seriously the Wii mode is probably forced into this situation because of hardware and software limitations rather than through the choice of Nintendo. Unfortunately to make this work would involve a virtualization layer that would be very difficult to deal with especially with Wii software that as far as it’s concerned has total control of the hardware it is running.
I will probably doing the same and keeping my original Wii around but partially because I’m terrible at parting with old computer hardware that has given me so much joy over the years. That plus I want to see how Nintendo handle the change over oh which I’m sure its in typical Nintendo style handled somewhat poorly.
Do you think Wii emulation on the Wii U will permit the 3d streaming of Wii content onto the 3DS. We know Dolphin is capable of Wii 3D emulation (even in HD), but having all the Wii games officially 3D enabled by Nintendo, and streamable from the Wii U onto 3DS would be a fantastic value proposition.
Very unlikely at all. Wii software doesn’t support it, 3DS probably isn’t up to the job of such a network intensive video stream and I’m very sure Nintendo would have no interest in it in anyway.
I see what you mean now but I honestly don’t think the Miiverse will be so important that I will not want to be disconnected from it while playing Wii software to the extent of keeping everything on my old Wii. It’s not like the 3DS where you lose StreetPass functionality when playing DS games as you won’t be travelling with a Wii U. I would just find it plain annoying to switch back and forth between a Wii and Wii U when all I need is a Wii U. However, I’m forced to keep my Wii now if I want to continue playing my GameCube games. :/
Wait you don’t want to lose connectivity of the Wii U miiverse… So when you play your wii is your wii u on at the same time and the gamepad sitting there??? I know it would be great to have miiverse integrate with wii mode but your logic of not using the Wii u for Wii games is baffling….
“your logic of not using the Wii u for Wii games is baffling”
Exactly, you can’t have both playing on the same TV at the same time regardless so it’s of absolutely no benefit to not migrate everything over. The only real downside as mentioned above is no GC ability, that’s the one I’m trying to resolve, I still have a N64 because there was no way around that issue with it, but having said that, it has been packed away in the same box since the day the Wii arrived so not such a big drama really.
I’m not talking about playing both the Wii and Wii U at the same time. Miiverse isn’t a game, it’s a social network. I can play the Wii on the TV and have Miiverse running on the GamePad for example.
I suppose the work around is the fact that I would assume that Miiverse is running all the in a similar fashion to Wii Connect 24 so you would still at least get notifications either via the disc drive light (does that still exist?) or via the Gamepad. Remember you will be able to use Miiverse on the game pad while playing the original Wii on the TV.
Yup!
I am 100% on Vooks side! I think the worst feature of 3DS is exactly as described, I don’t want to quit my Pokemon White journey to get Streetpass hits, it’s a big shame and in my opinion a missed opportunity/easy option for Nintendo, but it means Spotpass will never get maximum exposure and reach its highest potential. A fate I fear MiiVerse will suffer due to the same thing. I will be getting Wii U on launch dsy but I will never be transferring my VC games until/unless they allow me to play them on the game pad. OK, maybe not all WiiWare games can work, but just say ‘not compatible on GamePad’. There is no feasible reason why I couldn’t play Donkey Kong Country on the Wii U GamePad… It’s a missed opportunity at huge sales increase. I won’t get rid of my Wii because of Gamecube supprt, and therefore will keep my VC games at home there until there’s a benefit to transferring. To be completely honest, besides money grab and potential remakes/rereleases I cant see why Nintendo can’t make all VC games playable on 3DS even. I love Nintendo and will continue to buy there amazing games, so obviously I am partly to blame in enabling them to do things their way.
Back on MiiVerse, I’d love it to eventually be able to be utilised in Wii and VC games, which would be likely, and costly to Nintendo but all thumbs up to me. Ultimately I think the emulation scenario is a simpler, cheaper and faster alternative for them unfortunately.
On a side note, if they start releasing GameCube games on Wii U they will NEED to create a Wii U Wavebird accessory, that would make me re-purchase many games I own still… Damn them and their potential ;o)
Thanks Vook, I live in Wgtn NZ and this is my Nr 1 Ninty site I go to for info on Ninty, I really appreciate your articles. I didn’t realise that if you are playing a DS game and leave it on you don’t get any Streetpasses, which would explain what has been happening to me recently when playing Poke Black 2