What Could Be Next for the Wii U? January 10, 2013

The Holiday season is over and the Wii U has launched. As I’m sure everyone knows by now, I’ve been enjoying the Wii U quite a lot. With the launch window closing up and a wide range of the initial games promised to come to the Wii U at launch either released or getting released soon, I would like to draw attention to what will probably be Nintendo’s next wave of games to come to the platform in the next year.

All eyes are going to be looking at E3 this June for Microsoft and Sony to respond to the Wii U’s launch with new consoles of their own. If Sony or Microsoft were to announce new consoles (of course this is just theoretical I am not saying that they will), Nintendo will have to meet these announcements head on to solidify their place in the future-generation console war.

The best way they can do that is with a prepared list of new games and features that are ready to come to the Wii U. The question is what games should be coming to the Wii U that would be both a graphical treat, meet Nintendo’s high quality standards, and take advantage of the innovative Wii U controller?

Well, here’s some ideas I had. Now, I just want to preface this with the fact that what I’m going to be listing here DOES NOT represent anything I’ve heard coming from Nintendo, and I do not believe anything I have mentioned in this article has to come to the Wii U in order for the console to be successful. These are just some ideas and speculations I’ve had based upon my experiences using the Wii U and previous Nintendo consoles and asking myself the question, “You know what would be cool on this?”

A GameCube Friendly Virtual Console – The Wii and 3DS Virtual Console section of the Nintendo eShop was half the reason why I bought those consoles in the first place. The Wii U does support the legacy Wii Shop Channel, and anything purchased on the Wii (including classic Nintendo games) can still be purchased and played on the Wii U, just in a separate menu with a separate interface and lacking the support of the Wii U controller. So how can Nintendo release a new eShop Virtual Console on the Wii U and still honor all the games that are already out on the Wii’s Shop Channel?  I have a solution.

Ten years after the Nintendo GameCube launched, its titles are still being talked about today.  While games like Super Mario Sunshine never saw the same critical reviews as Mario 64 did, people are anxious as heck to play the next Luigi’s Mansion game on the 3DS, a series which started on the GameCube.  With over ten years of hearing critics talk about them I’m sure that players would love the chance to play Metroid Prime, Super Smash Bros Melee, Mario Kart Double Dash, or Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker but can’t due to the extremely high price of GameCube games.  Why not make these games available to download on the Wii U?

There are many very good reasons why this could work well and be a financial boom for Nintendo.  Brand new GameCube games (even ones that have ample supplies of new copies) currently retail for very high prices, pushing $100 US.  Backwards compatibility with GameCube games was not included with the Wii U. As such, if you want to play currently existing GameCube games, you’ll need to either keep your Wii plugged in, or dust off your original model GameCube. Neither is a very good option since consoles take up a lot of space in a home theater stand, and that stand could likely have as many as three other consoles already in it.  Compared to the DVD or Blu-Ray Discs other games came on, the GameCube’s proprietary game disc format only had a maximum storage capacity of about 1.5 GB per disc.  The current minimum storage capacity on a Wii U is 8GB of internal flash memory.  Full priced games that exceed that file size are already out for purchase on the eShop and thanks to the Wii U’s capability to support external storage are still flourishing.  The Wii U controller offers more than enough buttons, triggers, bumpers and analog sticks to make itself compliant with the GameCube controller, and will rumble to boot, something that wasn’t possible with the wireless GameCube controllers.  I also know a lot of players who would love to be able to play these games on the Wii U controller’s dedicated screen, letting someone else in the house use their HDTV.

I’m just going to say this.  I don’t care what it costs or who the money has to go to, I want Eternal Darkness as a launch title for the service.

Mario Kart U – a Mario Kart game has come to every Nintendo platform since the series launched on the Super Nintendo. Can you imagine for a second what it would be like to use the Wii U controller as a Kart’s steering wheel? You can turn the controller as you would turn the wheel of a car, and a first person view from the cart could be broadcast on the Wii U controller’s screen.  Four other players would be able to grab their own carts and play (with either a Wii Wheel or Wii U Pro controller) on your TV screen to race or balloon battle each other.

But don’t think you have to use the Wii U controller just to race.  In fact, Princess Angel thought it would be really interesting to have the Wii U controller’s touch screen at your disposal for content creation.  A neatly created interface on the touch screen could enable players interested in-game design the chance to build or modify their own game tracks they could play with their friends.  They could also theoretically be able to upload their race tracks online that other players across the world could download and try for themselves.  This could be as successful for Nintendo as Bungie was in adding Forge to Halo 3 and letting users make and modify their own Halo multiplayer maps.

3D Mario Game – Since Super Mario 64, Nintendo has proven that the little Italian plumber can take 3D head on and provide some of the best gaming experiences in history, and Super Mario Galaxy pushed the capabilities of 3D gameplay by bringing in motion control interactivity and some awesome level design. At launch, we did get a Mario game for the Wii U in the form of New Super Mario Bros U, the fourth game of the New Super Mario Bros series which harkened back to the original 2D games Nintendo had him on. Well, we have Nintendo’s first HD console, lets see how Mario looks when he’s back in the third dimension.

It would take me a day to write out all the possible titles you could call this game. Super Mario Galaxy 3, Super Mario Sunshine 2, or since the code name of Galaxy was Mario 128 (meaning it was a sequel to Mario 64), they could call this one Mario 256.

However, we know the title isn’t important, the gameplay is.

Metroid Wii U – Zelda and Metroid minigames were included with Nintendo Land but since the Wii U launch there has not been an announcement of any further Metroid games. I know that many considered the last Metroid game, Metroid: Other M, disappointing, but there are still huge fans out there for the Metroid Prime series. Retro Studios just hit on the right flavor with creating a first person adventure game which focused on exploration as much as it did on action. While they may have wrapped up the story they wanted to tell with Metroid Prime 3, there are plenty more stories that can be told in the Metroid Universe.

How could Metroid work on this new platform?  The Wii U controller could be used all the different blinking switches and buttons on the panels in Samus Aran’s space ship, as you could use the Wiimote to move Samus’s arm around to interact with the ship in Metroid Prime 3.  By doing a minigame like that you could bring in more interactivity when Samus is traveling from one planet to another. Or use the touchscreen to customize her armor appearance like you can alter your Miis in the Mii Maker. Players like customizing their avatars in-game before starting multiplayer, and I’m sure some players are going to want their Miis involved in the design as well.  As for actual in-game use of the Wii U controller, you could use it to focus scans in specific areas, target areas for demolition by your ship, or read further information about the game’s environment.

Wii U Video – Anyone remember this video from E3 2012?

At 1:41 of the above video Nintendo demonstrates Wii Panorama View. In it, a family took a look at the flight of an ultralight aircraft. It had an entire 360 degree shot of the entire flight, and gave the viewer the ability to control exactly what they wanted to see moment to moment. As the person with the Wii U controller moved, the camera’s position moved with them, altering the angle on the Wii U controller screen and the HDTV the Wii U was connected to. This is not something that the Wii U had at launch. Why not? It looks like it could be a lot of fun, and it brings in entirely new possibilities for filmmaking. I know that filmmakers are always trying to push the envelope for how films can be made, just look at the IMAX push with The Dark Knight films or the HFR push with The Hobbit. Could you imagine seeing the X Games broadcast in this way?

The Wii already had the Nintendo Channel, which allowed the Wii to stream Nintendo video content. The 3DS has Nintendo Video, which broadcasts exclusive videos in 3D to 3DS owners, and changes them out daily. Currently the Wii U only streams trailers for games that are for sale on the Nintendo eShop. Sure, Netflix, Amazon Video, YouTube, and Hulu Plus are all downloadable on the platform, but they are all paid services already available on other systems. The Wii U is sorely lacking original video content, and when I saw something demonstrated like the Wii U Panorama View is possible with this hardware, I just want to be able to experience it myself.

The possibilities are just endless with the Wii U controller. If I was able to come up with this short list, who knows what the people who actually made the Wii U could have in store for all of us?  Keep your eyes on Nintendo, there’s a lot we have to look forward to, and the sky is the limit for what will be coming after that.