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DigitalFoundry: Secrets of the WiiU GamePad

I can't believe people are still trying to bang this incredibly misinformed drum. Yes. the millions of touchscreen tablets and smatphones on the market today have woefully inaccurate touch sensors which EVERYBODY complains about and don't deliver the absolute pixel precision required to play highly technical games such as slopping down giant blocks in NSMBU or tapping large menu items.

Oh and before we even get started on "Miiverse drawings!!", AutoDesk Sketchbook Pro and other highly efficient drawing apps are used by millions worldwide on iPads with their fingers to produce HD images of outstanding quality, or of course further still on Galaxy Notes with inbuilt Wacom technology.

The Nintendo DS was in 2004. Technology unsurprisingly moved on (the reason why Nintendo is failing to capture hearts and minds) and so should your ignorance.

i'm sat here surfing gaf at the moment on my wii u, everytime i click i get the page i want, with my phone its often pot luck
 

marc^o^

Nintendo's Pro Bono PR Firm
The GamePad Touchscreen works flawlessly, obviously from an accuracy point of view while using the stylus (with no need to cumbersome zoom in/zoom out that you find in iPad drwing apps), but also with zero latency on what is displayed on TV. I wonder if this zero latency would have worked with multitouch.
 

SmokyDave

Member
i'm sat here surfing gaf at the moment on my wii u, everytime i click i get the page i want, with my phone its often pot luck

tumblr_le4hnqpxes1qbtchoo1_400.gif
 
The GamePad Touchscreen works flawlessly, obviously from an accuracy point of view while using the stylus (with no need to cumbersome zoom in/zoom out that you find in iPad drwing apps), but also with zero latency on what is displayed on TV. I wonder if this zero latency would have worked with multitouch.

multi touch can introduce latency too
 
Is it sad that the only thing at the moment that would get me to pick up a Wii U is if someone released a good PC driver for the gamepad, so I could play my PC games on it away from my monitor/TV.
 
The GamePad itself isn't anywhere near as complex as even the most basic Android tablet

might be correct on some technical level, but in terms of possibilities it seems to me the Gamepad can do everything tablets can do and more, because of the 2nd screen.

LMAO THIS DELUSIONAL fanboy really lives in his own world... rofl
 
Im surfing gaf on my wiiu vita and iphone and dont have problems with any ot them. Now what? lol

Oh, cool. My iPhone has that. They should've put it in a bullet point.

The Vita actually detects your touch before you've touched the screen. That shit blows my mind.
How do you get it to do that? Not sure if it happened to me yet.
 

Pie and Beans

Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
i'm sat here surfing gaf at the moment on my wii u, everytime i click i get the page i want, with my phone its often pot luck

Size matters. Have you ever used a say a Nexus 7 or iPad Mini, or anything in the same space as the WiiU's 6.2 inches? They may well blow your mind if you havent and consider the WiiU unbeatably accurate.
 

Joni

Member
acurate touch > multitouch

So unlike all smartphone makers and SCE, Nintendo can't buy accurate multitouch screens. For instance even FlowFree's 15*15 fields can be finished easily on my smartphone, and those are meant for the screens of tablets. I think that should be accurate enough for any game.
 
Size matters. Have you ever used a say a Nexus 7 or iPad Mini, or anything in the same space as the WiiU's 6.2 inches? They may well blow your mind if you havent and consider the WiiU unbeatably accurate.

i've had a little play around with 7 inch tablets and yes they accuracy is better than my 4.7 inch phone though the game pad is still better
 

Omikaru

Member
I cannot believe there are people actually defending Nintendo's use of resistive touch on the Wii U GamePad. I'm sure they're the people who believed Reggie when he said capacitive multitouch 'would feel unwieldy' on Wii U. Like it does on the PS Vita, obviously.


Just want to say that this is amazing. Inaccurate indeed, lol.
 

Vorg

Banned
So unlike all smartphone makers and SCE, Nintendo can't buy accurate multitouch screens. For instance even FlowFree's 15*15 fields can be finished easily on my smartphone, and those are meant for the screens of tablets. I think that should be accurate enough for any game.

Yeah, what the hell does "accurate touch" even mean? I can accurately touch anywhere on my phone's screen.
 
Do you have massively fat fingers?

Typed on my iPhone (successfully).

Apparently a lot of people have fat fingers since every site I visit is being redesigned with extra white space and giant buttons. Freaking annoying.

The videos are missing the point. Every button being clicked is about the size of a nickel.

Since it's a WiFi protocol does this mean streaming to the gamepad would be possible without specialized hardware? Could the gamepad be treated as a streaming device anywhere with wifi? Or are there additional internet connection protocols that would need to be added to work on more than just a local network?
 

SmokyDave

Member
How do you get it to do that? Not sure if it happened to me yet.
You don't need to do anything. It's the same 'Floating Touch' technology that they use in some Xperia phones. It detects the touch just before you actually touch the screen (presumably with some electrical charge tomfoolery). Try hovering your finger just above the screen (you need to be really close) in the OS and swiping through the pages. It's a neat little trick.
 

Pie and Beans

Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
i've had a little play around with 7 inch tablets and yes they accuracy is better than my 4.7 inch phone though the game pad is still better

Well theres no accounting for company defence force delusions built into these devices. Unless you were playing around with microscopes, advanced time capture cameras, and pressure point needles, you couldn't tell the difference. Only your mental bias is giving you one result over another, and its probably time to recognise that as an adult.
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
You don't need to do anything. It's the same 'Floating Touch' technology that they use in some Xperia phones. It detects the touch just before you actually touch the screen (presumably with some electrical charge tomfoolery). Try hovering your finger just above the screen (you need to be really close) in the OS and swiping through the pages. It's a neat little trick.

I think I experienced this on my Lumia, that or I had high screen sensitivty on (Lets you use regular gloves with the touchscreen, great feature during winter) and a tiny hair on my finger. Still, the feeling of "What the fuck did I even touch the screen?!" applies.
 

Jaagen

Member
I think I experienced this on my Lumia, that or I had high screen sensitivty on (Lets you use regular gloves with the touchscreen, great feature during winter) and a tiny hair on my finger. Still, the feeling of "What the fuck did I even touch the screen?!" applies.

The Lumia 920 has "super sensitive touch", so maybe it was that?
 

Taker666

Member
Size matters. Have you ever used a say a Nexus 7 or iPad Mini, or anything in the same space as the WiiU's 6.2 inches? They may well blow your mind if you havent and consider the WiiU unbeatably accurate.

I was given a Kindle fire HD as a gift (which is slightly bigger than the Wii U screen). I much prefer surfing on the Wii U pad.

I've often mistyped when using the kindle keyboard or clicked the wrong link due to webpages having a bunch of small links close together ..or accidently brushed part of the screen and caused it to register a touch when i didn't want it to. I'd pick browsing on the Wii U pad over the Kindle Fire every time (well provided I'm in the same room as the wii U of course).
 
You don't need to do anything. It's the same 'Floating Touch' technology that they use in some Xperia phones. It detects the touch just before you actually touch the screen (presumably with some electrical charge tomfoolery). Try hovering your finger just above the screen (you need to be really close) in the OS and swiping through the pages. It's a neat little trick.
I think im doing it, I cant do it everytime though
 

SmokyDave

Member
I think I experienced this on my Lumia, that or I had high screen sensitivty on (Lets you use regular gloves with the touchscreen, great feature during winter) and a tiny hair on my finger. Still, the feeling of "What the fuck did I even touch the screen?!" applies.

Yeah, it's weird ain't it. Not a terribly useful feature, but a funky little gimmick nonetheless!

Edit: I had no idea English was your second language! I think you're being a little too harsh on yourself.

I think im doing it, I cant do it everytime though
It is odd. I usually forget it's there until I trigger something by accident.
 

Jaagen

Member
Yeah, that's what I was trying to describe, I feel my English has suffered lately so I've not been very good at getting my points across.

I've also noticed the the L920 feels a lot more sensitive sometimes, even with the "super sensitive" functionality turned off.
 

PaulLFC

Member
Electronics are cheap. The GamePad contains a lot more mechanical parts and individual components.
Apart from the buttons and sticks, which are likely extremely cheap for Nintendo to manufacture/acquire from a manufacturer (they're on various controllers for various, much smaller costs), and the decoder chip, what other components does it contain? Serious question, as I'm just going off what I've read.

Gamepad
Screen (resistive)
Plastic casing
Buttons
Analog sticks
WiFi chip
Video decoder chip
Camera

Cheap tablet
Screen (multitouch)
Plastic casing
CPU & quad-core mobile GPU
1GB RAM
8GB flash memory
WiFi chip
Camera

I'm honestly struggling to see what can be so expensive about the gamepad, unless that decoder chip is ridiculously costly to produce - I can't imagine it being expensive enough to push the cost up so much.
 

Margalis

Banned
Well theres no accounting for company defence force delusions built into these devices.

You seem to be the one guilty of defense force delusions.

Capacitive screens are less accurate. This is a simple scientific fact. End of story.

Only your mental bias is giving you one result over another, and its probably time to recognise that as an adult.

Is it also mental bias to think that the sun is hotter than a stove top? As an adult you should recognise that different technologies have different strengths and weaknesses and that correctly identifying a strength is not "mental bias." (Maybe also learn to spell "recognize")
 
I was given a Kindle fire HD as a gift (which is slightly bigger than the Wii U screen). I much prefer surfing on the Wii U pad.

I've often mistyped when using the kindle keyboard or clicked the wrong link due to webpages having a bunch of small links close together ..or accidently brushed part of the screen and caused it to register a touch when i didn't want it to. I'd pick browsing on the Wii U pad over the Kindle Fire every time (well provided I'm in the same room as the wii U of course).

thank you, i knew it wasn't just me
 
Clearly this still isn't accurate enough when compared to Nintendo's special accurate touch™ technology filled with ~possibilities~.

There's certainly benefits in a stylus, like extra precision, ease of writing, and being able to see what you're doing. The best solution is Wacom digitiser tech but obviously that's out for cost/profit reasons.
 
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