Here at Gadget Helpline we pride ourselves on giving you all the facts you could need to know about the gadgets you want. Sometimes these facts are fact-filled nuggets of knowledge that will get your brain bubbling, and sometimes they may be a bit more frivolous. With that in mind, sit back and relax while you open your mind for Gadget Helpline’s ‘5 things you should know about the Nintendo Wii U…and one thing you’ll wish you’d never read’.
1. Controllers Galore
As well as having the fancy new Wii U GamePad, the Nintendo Wii U will also be able to handle your regular Wii controllers, nunchucks and balance board as well as other accessories. Now, you’ve probably already spent a fair bit of money on your Nintendo Wii and the thought of handing over some more cash for Wii U accessories may make you think twice, so the fact that you won’t need to means Nintendo deserves a gold star for that piece of forward thinking and indeed, backwards compatibility.
2. Social Gaming
Have you ever played a game where you get to a certain level and you get stuck? You don’t know where to go next or there is a certain boss that you can’t get past – it happens all the time. In the past you would have to pause the game and go to the internet and search for some help in online forums, or if you’re lucky you might get your answer within 10 minutes, sometimes you may never get an answer.
The Wii U solves this issue by having ‘Discussions’. Whilst the traditional game menu is displayed on the GamePad, on your TV you will see icons denoting the most popular games being played, and you can then send your Mii over to that icon and take part in a discussion with other people in your country who can leave messages with tips for the game to get you past that tricky bit.
3. Backwards Compatibility
With the introduction of fitness and health games on the Wii, Nintendo made sure that their console became an everyday item for some people, by making it ‘the’ console for group gaming and not just catering for hardcore gamers. They made an effort to tempt families to swap movie night for a gaming night.
Microsoft and Sony may have missed a trick but they soon jumped on the bandwagon. A lot of people have a whole bunch of games for their Wiis and though idea of having to buy a new selection for the Wii U may have put them off purchasing it, but Nintendo, being the customer-centric company that they are, have made sure that the Wii U is backwards compatible, meaning that all your old games will play on the new console.
4. Full HD Support
With more and more platforms adding entertainment to their games consoles it would seem silly for the Wii U not to support Netflix, YouTube and a whole host of other third party software. For the console to become a real contender Nintendo needed to make sure that the Wii U could compete with the high quality display of the Sony PlayStation 3 and the Microsoft Xbox 360, and they have done by having the Wii U support Full 1080p HD. Games will look crisp and movies will look great on the Wii U.
5. Streaming to the GamePad
We at Gadget Helpline know what it’s like to get home after a long day of blogging with no other thought in our minds than turn on our respective consoles and immerse ourselves in an good hour or two of zombie bashing, goal scoring, car racing, smackdown laying, sky-rimming goodness. The universe however, doesn’t always work in our favour.
There is always somebody who wants to watch a film or catch up on the soaps and more often than not we may end up relegated to a smartphone or tablet, playing Angry Birds Space. Nintendo have acknowledged this problem and countered it, and with the Wii U you can stream the game from the console to the GamePad without using the TV, and when the television becomes available you can switch back to full screen glory.
If you say Wii U over and over again you’ll sound like an ambulance.
Now it may seem that this blog was written so we could tell you an ambulance joke and make an image of dogs playing poker on the Wii U, and it was, but we think you will agree that the Wii U looks like an exciting console that will take social gaming to the next level, at least until the next Sony and Microsoft consoles are released at any rate.
Are you going to buy the new Wii U? Let us know your thoughts on our comments below or via our @Gadget_Helpline Twitter page or Official Facebook group.