| Shadow1980 said: "Necessity is the mother of invention." Things like the D-pad and analog sticks were needed to offer new ways to play games. The D-pad's existence is fairly self-explanatory. To make the kind of games found on the SNES, more buttons were needed than just A & B. To have 3D platformers like Mario 64, analog sticks were needed. There's no guarantee that they would have become standards, but they did, and the modern gamepad has pretty much settled into a sort of steady state. From the year 2000 on, every system has a gamepad with a D-pad, shoulder buttons/triggers, dual analog sticks, and the diamond-shape arrangement of face buttons, all of which proved necessary at some point and are still necessary today. As for the Wii U gamepad's touchscreen, it too has some practical benefits that offer new ways of playing. The most obvious application of second screens is that they allow off-screen play, can display inventory, maps, and the like without needing to pause the game, and can allow for new types of asynchronous multiplayer. Whether it becomes standard like analog sticks, etc., have remains to be seen. Sony and MS are making at least token efforts towards second-screen tech as well with PS4/Vita integration and SmartGlass tech, respectively. |
Very little of that needs the gamepad, though. A few of those uses are slight improvements, yes, but they're mostly side-grades. Toggling a button to see a map isn't really that much worse than refocusing between two different screens at different distances. Asynchronous multiplayer isn't really a unique feature as much as it is a limitation--other systems can do that if they want but the Wii U has no choice without another gamepad. The gamepad in no way has reached the level of necessity.
That's not to say it can't, however. Before the Wii U even came out, I was saying that the gamepad represents all kinds of possibilities in terms of strategic and tactical games and, especially, in terms of adding selectable options. A game like WoW, for instance, can't be replicated on a home console because it requires as many hotkeys as you can possibly program. A standard controller completely fails at that but what about the gamepad? What if the touchscreen was actually used for something game-changing, like adding more rows of virtual hotkeys? Dragon Age is probably the same--though I haven't played it on console, I can't imagine it being close to the PC in terms of ability control. Functions like this aren't flashy, they aren't gimmicky, but they are possibly very useful. Which is why they will probably be ignored by Nintendo.
Just assigning standard features to the gamepad screen won't make it a necessity. Just adding gimmicky controls for no real reason won't make it a necessity. Re-thinking what a controller can offer and using it to solve real controller/gameplay interface problems ... that's another story. I won't hold my breath, though, as third parties aren't going to take the risk and Nintendo probably won't develop an IP so complex that it inherently needs the gamepad.
