What is the point in freeing up the TV when you're in the same room as the TV? Most households by the time this becomes relevant will be able to free the TV regardless by streaming TV to their tablet or laptop. The PS VIta can do this too and that is a really popular and successful platform, it can even free up the TV and you don't even have to be in the same room.
Asymmetrical gameplay has not been proved to be enticing. You can't count these until they are hatched.
Do you realize that you answered your own question? Plenty of people are on other devices while the TV is on for others. My girlfriend is constantly doing things on her phone, tablet, or playing my 3DS while the TV is on a show. Even my mom often plays her DS while watching programs in the background. The WiiU will give people the ability to play a full-fledged console game in their hands on the fly if others enter the room for TV watching. Same goes for watching Netflix, etc. And who said you must remain in the same room?
You can count asymmetrical gameplay as yet another feature that the WiiU provides that hasn't been done before out of the box for a home game console, which is why I brought it up in this discussion. Whether it's a selling point remains to be seen, but it certainly has potential.
Wireless has a limited range for streaming. Besides if the Vita does practically the same thing and is not popular there is very little reason to think that the Wii U tablet feature will be more popular with even less capability.
Why? As the post above yours points out, most importantly, people will be buying WiiU for its games; something that Vita is not proving itself with at the moment. Vita is a completely separate purchase independent from the PS3. The WiiU is built around this philosophy and works out of the box. So developers can design around this principle as everyone will have access to its capabilities. So it'll be far more popular in this regard; it's not even close.
And the streaming is not just limited to playing a game on the gamepad instead of the TV; both screens can work in tandem with WiiU with one game. The Vita requires software on both devices - see Playstation All Stars - which means that the image being displayed on Vita while doing this is limited to its hardware. As we saw with the Zelda HD demo (running in real time) last year, WiiU can display the full game image on the TV and the gamepad simultaneously. Can PS3 + Vita (or Xbox360 + Smartglass) do that?
Yes in a sense.
OMG, two things (1) that is a really cool demo, but one that ultimately proves why Nintendo's idea of the WiiU and Gamepad would be succesful, and (2) Sony is so dam shamless it is rediculous. I mean how many of Nintendo's ideas are they going to steel - sixaxis, Move, kart racing, Playstation AS Battleroyal, I mean come on. No wonder Nintendo is so dame secreative all the time - because they know Sony (and Microsoft to an extent) are just out their to steal their ideas!
Nintendo Network ID: DaRevren
I love My Wii U, and the potential it brings to gaming.
