Ever since their first console, Nintendo made sure that they had direct and simple to grasp input methods.
They had the D-Pad, then the Shoulder Buttons with colored Face-Buttons, they had the Analog Stick with an Octagon, they had great ergonomics with the Gamecube controller, Wireless with the Wavebird, they reinvented themselves with the Wiimote.
Now we have the Wii U and they seem to have dropped the ball hard. They have too many input methods and can't serve one completely right.
While I appreciate that you can use last gens controllers on the Wii U, it brought forth a fundamental problem: The new ones are sometimes not supported, because Nintendo didn't establish a standard for themselves.
The Wii U Pro Controller is almost perfect. Except: I can't use it in some games, because it doesn't have a gyro. It also won't work for VC GameCube games, because they dropped the analog shoulder pads, while everyone else adopted them.
Look at Nintendoland: Pobably the best collection of asynchronus Multiplayer games I ever played. But not playable with the set of Pro Controllers I own. I have to also have 4 loaded Wiimotes at hand, if I want to switch from Mario Kart 8 to Nintendoland to play the Luigi, Animal Crossing or Mario mini games, that would not require them. NSMBWiiU was on launch not playable with the Pro Controller, but at least that has been patched since. There are several games, where I can't use the pro Controller as Player 1, but the other players can.
They also have not been able to follow up on Nintendoland with concepts that make full use of the Gamepad. The best games to make use of it were released at launch with Zombie U and Nintendoland (maybe Affordable Space Adventures can fix this, but it's an Indie game coming 2,5 years after launch, not a Nintendo game).
Furthermore they have dropped the Octagon on the Sticks this gen, which probably lead to a less then perfect 8 way controlled Mario 3D World instead of true analog control. It also makes backward compability in games like Super Mario 64 much worse.
But that is not all. On top of all this, they now have a lag issue in their VC. SNES and N64 games have way more lag when played on the Pro Controller. It has been there from the start and they don't seem to care or can't fix it.
This gen, they managed to scramble in an area where they once dominated with innovation, setting industry standards and know how. They somehow managed to get the fundamental basics of a console wrong. I don't care how they compare in graphics or power consumption with the others, as long as they nail the gameplay. But how can they do that, if they don't get the controls right?
This will always be a stain on an otherwise really great collection of games for me.
I know this is an issue long known, but since the release of Super Mario 64 on the VC it became apparent for me again and I wanted to get this of my chest. Hopefully they manage to rectify this next gen.
They had the D-Pad, then the Shoulder Buttons with colored Face-Buttons, they had the Analog Stick with an Octagon, they had great ergonomics with the Gamecube controller, Wireless with the Wavebird, they reinvented themselves with the Wiimote.
the gif has the inferior SNES buttons
Now we have the Wii U and they seem to have dropped the ball hard. They have too many input methods and can't serve one completely right.
While I appreciate that you can use last gens controllers on the Wii U, it brought forth a fundamental problem: The new ones are sometimes not supported, because Nintendo didn't establish a standard for themselves.
The Wii U Pro Controller is almost perfect. Except: I can't use it in some games, because it doesn't have a gyro. It also won't work for VC GameCube games, because they dropped the analog shoulder pads, while everyone else adopted them.
Look at Nintendoland: Pobably the best collection of asynchronus Multiplayer games I ever played. But not playable with the set of Pro Controllers I own. I have to also have 4 loaded Wiimotes at hand, if I want to switch from Mario Kart 8 to Nintendoland to play the Luigi, Animal Crossing or Mario mini games, that would not require them. NSMBWiiU was on launch not playable with the Pro Controller, but at least that has been patched since. There are several games, where I can't use the pro Controller as Player 1, but the other players can.
They also have not been able to follow up on Nintendoland with concepts that make full use of the Gamepad. The best games to make use of it were released at launch with Zombie U and Nintendoland (maybe Affordable Space Adventures can fix this, but it's an Indie game coming 2,5 years after launch, not a Nintendo game).
Furthermore they have dropped the Octagon on the Sticks this gen, which probably lead to a less then perfect 8 way controlled Mario 3D World instead of true analog control. It also makes backward compability in games like Super Mario 64 much worse.
But that is not all. On top of all this, they now have a lag issue in their VC. SNES and N64 games have way more lag when played on the Pro Controller. It has been there from the start and they don't seem to care or can't fix it.
This gen, they managed to scramble in an area where they once dominated with innovation, setting industry standards and know how. They somehow managed to get the fundamental basics of a console wrong. I don't care how they compare in graphics or power consumption with the others, as long as they nail the gameplay. But how can they do that, if they don't get the controls right?
This will always be a stain on an otherwise really great collection of games for me.
I know this is an issue long known, but since the release of Super Mario 64 on the VC it became apparent for me again and I wanted to get this of my chest. Hopefully they manage to rectify this next gen.
