Comment by jjice

The Wiimotes were a clear influence on the Joy-Cons.

Nintendo still uses motion controls; they just made them portable and more resilient with gyros instead of IR.

> almost everyone I knew had a Wii at some point, but they didn't use it outside of a family toy with a few games when they first got it.

At various points in my family's owning one, we obviously used it for the Wii Sports-type games, as well as non-motion games like NES titles from the Virtual Console (the Wiimote in its rubber case felt surprisingly decent in the hands while turned sideways). But we also used it for Netflix and YouTube with the official apps, and surprisingly, various other websites with the Internet Channel. We sometimes used the SD card reader to look at photos from digital cameras, which seems like it doesn't make a lot of sense today, but was easier than connecting up a camera or camcorder to a TV with a cable to look at things, which was also a thing back then.

It was certainly a "go long periods without touching it" part of the home, but it was also surprisingly versatile with the uses that did pop up for it. And I think we got more usage out of it, both in terms of hours and in terms of distinct use cases, than we got out of the Xbox 360 we had later (if not, it was basically due to Minecraft, not because we played a larger number of games on the Xbox).

I believe the Wii had the best or second best attach rate for a Nintendo console (how many games sold per console sold). It lived a long time and had a ton of good releases.

Yes, great source. filter that by Home vs the mobile category to see it is only beat by PlayStation.

You could argue the Switch is a home console as well.

TBH other then a few neat local multiplayer stuff in NintendoLand, there really wasn't much that actually utilized the dual screen in a way that actually enhanced the game. You couldn't quickly swap between the screens like you could on the DS, because the screens were different distances away and required re-focusing your eyes. This meant that most gamepad usages played the same as if you just pressed a button to bring up your inventory or switch views or whatever.

And that's before you take into account the fact that the biggest titles on the Wii U (Mario Kart and Smash Bros) didn't use the second screen at all. The second screen was a gimmick, and a gimmick that was exhausted pretty quickly.

I’m fairly certain I remember them suggesting that the original switch was capable of doing this but then they either never granted access to it in the dev kit or they just never had it end up getting used in any noteworthy games.

Nintendoland for the Wii U was _very_ fun in my memory. It was the only title that I remember leveraging the asymmetry of information that different players can have for local multiplayer.

A feature they could still possibly have snuck in would be the ability to cast a feed from the handheld to a TV.

That would be an interesting use of the USB connector at the top --- plug into the Dock and use the Switch as a gamepad à la the Wii U while playing on the TV.

I really loved some of the multiplayer games on Wii U that took advantage of the gamepad. Completely brilliant to have one "special" player with the gamepad + second screen vs. the rest of the plebs with Wiimotes.

The portability was amusing but then turned out to be absolutely phenomenal (and likely resulted in multiple sales to individual households).

It both saved them from having to work out what to do with the handhelds, and introduced parents to "the kids can just bring it with them".

I have an Xbox Series X and I'm still not sure I got "the right one" but since I got it as a glorified blurry player that can also play games maybe, it's fine as is.