Prior to E3, as details of the next Wii were becoming clear, I had a dream that I could play the games on Nintendo’s next console in my bathroom.
The idea is that the Wii 2 – which we now know will be called the Wii U – can stream games that normally run on your TV onto the controller’s 6.2-inch screen. No longer would you have to stop gaming just because your TV was no longer available. The Wii 2, I dreamed, would be the game console that would let me keep gaming while taking a bathroom break!
I dreamed too ambitiously, it seems.
“I don’t know how far away your bathroom is,” Nintendo’s Katsuya Eguchi told me, as I bothered the lead creator of the Animal Crossing series and of several upcoming Wii U projects with my bathroom brainstorm.
I suggested that he stop by my house to see, which he laughed in a manner that allowed me to feel as if he was amused by my response and not creeped out by it.
I clarified: Can we use the Wii U controller to run a game even if we’ve stepped away from the TV?
“The thought is you’ll be playing in the same room that the base console is in,” he said. And, sure enough, Eguchi’s Wii U demos, multiplayer shorts like Chase Mii and Battle Mii are quite fun when you’re playing in the same room as your opponents, the rest of whom use Wii Remotes and the TV, while you play off of the controller.
So, unless you move your console into your bathroom or move your toilet into your living room – and why not, considering the Kinect required us to rearrange our couches? – there will be no Wii U gaming on the toilet. At least none confirmed. Naturally, I’ll still try it. I’ll stretch that wireless streaming through my living room wall, if I can. And if you get a Wii U, I’m sure you will as well.
I’ll have more from Eguchi on the Wii U in the coming days…
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