Further evidence that the Wii U supports two tablet controllers?

May 27th, 2012 in Hardware, News, Rumours

Wii U controller prototype

We still haven’t heard word from Nintendo on exactly how many tablet controllers the Wii U supports simultaneously, but a NeoGAF poster claiming to be in the know has stated that “documents [Nintendo of Europe]’s representatives and distributors got … last August” confirmed that the Wii U does indeed support two of them at once.

I’m hesitant to call it a fact until Nintendo themselves confirm it; but considering how much public backlash there was to the mere thought of only one tablet controller being supported, I imagine they would’ve given dual-controller support some serious consideration by now.

Written by Source (via), submitted by Kevin Femmel

Tagged:

We can deliver all the latest Wii U news straight to your inbox every morning. Want in?

Comments, Reactions, and General Hooliganism

  1. Hylianhero64

    I’m actually pretty surprised people are settling for two. I guess it’s not that important in this age of online play, and that, technically, you can have up to 6 people on one console (I know Nintendo hasn’t confirmed this, but it makes sense – the 4 Wiimotes won’t need to stream video or anything), but that means if you want to have a 4-player bout in, say, a news LoZ: 4 Swords, well tough luck.

    What if the video was streamed at an even lower resolution than 400×800 (or whatever)? I think I read that the Wii U would be streaming the 1080p video feed, and the controller would have a little CPU that downscales the video to the controller’s resolution. That seems pretty inefficient to me, although i don’t know much about computers. But since 480p is about a fourth of 1080p (number of pixels), it’d be great if the Wii U could stream 4 separate streams of 480p instead of 1 (or 2) of 1080p. I doubt it’s really that simple, though.

    Also, how awesome would it be if you could have a CoD match going 4 v 4 on one console? Or 8 people playing F Zero?

    • Lene

      I don’t think it would be that hard to display on 4 controllers with a 540×960 screen (1/4 of 1080×1920, right?), especially if you display nothing on TV in the same time. If everyone is playing on his own controller, the TV isn’t really useful, except maybe to display basic things (the equivalent of the bottom screen in MK7 or MK DS, for example).

      AMD graphic cards are known to handle this kind of thing for several years now. When you think about it, it is not really different from 4 players split screen. The only problem is to stream the video and audio, and I really believe nowadays wireless communication devices can do this.

    • ChrisTeeAhn

      I was also thinking about the stupidity of 1 controller as soon as the 1 controller rumor surfaced a year ago. (even tho Fils-Aime clearly said 2 controllers at e3 2011!)

      854×480 is the rumored WiiU controller resolution right?

      So lets say:

      4 Tablets = 4x 854×480 (4x 409920Pixels) = 1639680 Pixels

      1 FullHDTV = 1x 1920×1080 = 2073600 Pixels

      1639680 is around 79% percent of 2073600

      2073600 (100%) – 1639680 (79%) = 433920 (21%)

      This means the WiiU will safe 21% GPU processing power when displaying on 4 controllers and not the TV.

      But what to do with the 21% left?

      Another tablet maybe?

      433920 (21%) = more than 1 Tablet controller(409920) needs!

      433920 – 409920 = 24000 Pixels left (around 1.2% left!)

      But a fifth Tablet would be sort of useless and lets not forget the WiiU might need some extra processing power for whatever reason to handle 4 Tablets and for this purpose 1.2% seem insufficient!

      So lets say we use a TV instead of a fifth controller!

      The TV should display the Wii’s EDTV resolution of 720×480 this would be 345600 pixels.

      433920 – 345600 (720×480 Wii Resolution!) = 88320 Pixels left! around 4,2% left of the total 2073600 Pixels.

      So if all the controllers get a 854×480 and the TV gets a 720×480 resolution

      we still have 4,2% left.

      And of course the TV doesn’t have to display complex stuff etc. Simple stuff like rankings, maps, radar, settings etc. in 3d or simple 2d would be more than enough. Even VC games should work here.
      And the TV could even display 720x480i instead of 480p to safe even more power for something else!

      Thanks for reading

  2. uPadWatcher

    I would really want the Big N to make it happen and have 2 uPads to control simultaneously!

  3. Brian

    i really do hope that this is true…it would be pretty sad if the it can only use one table controller…with that said though buying additional WiiU tablet controller is gonna be really expensive…there is no way these thing can sell for any where near the prices of regular controllers

  4. Gabe

    I think 2 remotes would be insanely cool for co-op play in an open world game. Imagine playing a game where the two players would not be restricted to staying within the TV screen, where each player can choose to go his or her own way at will!

  5. josh

    This news really makes me hope borderline 2 comes out on the wii u, and that they announce it before it comes out on xbox. i loved playing it split screen with my partner but those menus were terrible!

  6. Nintendoftw

    Good.