Wii U and physical DS carts
just a random late night thought...
do you think nintendo intended there to be a DS player type device ala Super GameBoy/ GameBoy Player for the Wii U if it continued in the market?
i kinda get the feeling thats the way things were headed until well... the mass market confusion that was the wii u's launch and naming convention
I don't think so. Plenty of DS games were designed to use both screens together at the same time, the images from one screen would continue through to the other screen. Separating the images between a TV and a game pad screen would make many games impossible to play. Plus plenty of DS games also used unique features of the DS that just wouldn't work on a TV output, like needing to physically close the DS screen to solve a puzzle of an adventure game. I know most games probably wouldn't be restricted by gimmick features and would probably work fine, but if Nintendo released a device like this it would need to be compatible with almost all games with only a few possible exceptions.
I think another big point was by the time the Wii U hit, Nintendo fully embraced milking the fanbase with double dips. From that point till present day no company really gives a shit about backwards compatibility unless it can be monitized heavily. Backwards compatibility as a goodwill gesture towards the consumer has flown the coop.
You had Wii U Virtual Console rereleases with an increased price point and the original Wii releases being nuked. Wii titles were being rereleased digitally with a $20+ price tag when the original discs could be bought for a fraction of that price.
The SNES Super Game Boy helped move regular GB carts that were still being sold at MSRP. A Wii U DS adapter would have eaten into their digital sales of (inflated price) DS games.
I don't, but I always thought it'd have been a system seller if Nintendo did it.
Most Nintendo DS games used the bottom screen for gameplay and top screen for the map while most 3DS games used the top screen for gameplay and the bottom screen for a map/menu as they mostly got away with the mechanics of touching the screen for any gameplay interactivity. So my thoughts of the DS Player would have been to have the ZL or ZR allowing for you to either swap TV/Wii U tablet as top or bottom screen and then the other of the two swapped between the TV or the Wii Pad showing both screens on the same device.
Now I own the Wii U, but I really got very little use out of it and think it's one of the biggest wastes of money I've ever made for a video game purchase, even more so than the Sega CD games I've bought which I feel have more value due to their retained exclusivity to the console. However, if the DS Player was ever released that alone would have made the Wii U worth it as a console.
The DS, 3DS, and PSP are my three favorite portable consoles and while the PSP does have ways to play the games on TV, PSP2000/3000/CFW Go/CFW PSVita TV, there's no way to do so with the 3DS without the hardware being revised. The PSP systems are already able to do so, the CFW is because you need to gain access to your physical media somehow which you can't, and all that's software based, additionally you can do so with a controller on the PSP Go and PSVita TV.
I don't look into emulation all that much anymore but if there's CFW to allow the Wii U to do this DS Player stuff then point me that direction. I'll take unofficially if it's still possible, I don't use my Wii U for anything else.
Everything in the above post is opinion unless stated otherwise.
It's also possible that it would have inflated the Wii U's awful sales though as well, then Nintendo wouldn't have cut the system short. I've been burned by Nintendo quite a few times and the Wii U is another one to add to the list, buying it on year three due to the whole grass is greener stuff and finally feeling it had enough games I was interested in, only for Nintendo then announcing the Switch shortly before releasing it the following year. There's reason I'm always so pissed off by Nintendo and it's often times because I get burned by Nintendo and their bs sales tactics and business management.Originally Posted by Az
Everything in the above post is opinion unless stated otherwise.
too much to quote....
games wise i think the gamepad/tv thing would work out ok. sure some games wouldnt be playable but at the same time some games on super/gb player werent playable on those systems either.
all the games that had touch controls used the bottom screen any way so that shouldnt be a problem.
i'm sure it woulda been a $120ish add on but since technology has advanced since super/GB player they probably wouldnt have to add a whole ds board to the addon either
I looked up Wii U emulation and it appears it's not possible to emulate the 3DS, but apparently because Nintendo developed the emulation for the system, all you have to do is convert the games to the Wii U app format and they play flawlessly on the console. This includes the DS.
Looks like my Wii U isn't a no exclusives paperweight after all. Well, scratch that, it still has no exclusives, but this makes it worth keeping now. It apparently is also able to play Phantasy Star Online online as well, that's a nice bonus.
Last edited by kupomogli; 10-30-2022 at 11:09 PM.
Everything in the above post is opinion unless stated otherwise.
I remembered reading that Nintendo had DS games as part of the Virtual Console. I never tried it as, well, I had a DS and it was portable. Good to know this is exploitable as I wouldn't mind playing Pac n' Roll using a bigger screen.
yea i really like playing the portable games on bigger screens. i think its because as i've gotten older (aka bigger) my fingers go numb when i try to play something like a DS or GBA. Brick GBs i dont have an issue with and the switch lite i have has grips in the controller that help but eventually they will if i go a while on it.
edit:
i had a random thought and found a thing to "back up saves" over usb for DS games and i figured i'd try it on the wii u to see what happens. either way if it doesn't work i'd want something to rip my own games any way to play on the system
Last edited by Niku-Sama; 11-01-2022 at 01:00 AM.
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