thx1139 said:
superchunk said:
Ok, so this just crazy.
Anyone who tries to argue that generic tablet/phone inter-connectivity is within the same feature or benefit set as WiiU's gamepad is 100% crazy.
Did Move make Wiimotes irrelevant? Did Kinect (albeit not the same but motion based)?
There is a few major differences here.
1) Tablets and phones do NOT have the same controls. These devices don't have analog sticks and buttons, just touch interfaces. They could not in any feasible way replace or replicate the full feature set that the Gamepad will offer.
2) They are not packaged with EVERY console. i.e. there will be a lot of owners who do not have a tablet/phone. This means that devs will not throw a lot of resources at these features. Whereas with WiiU they know 100% of owners have the device so it makes sense to utilize it in 100% of games. This is why Move has very little support, even in the FPS category where it would be fucking awesome. Hello COD doesn't even use Move when they already have the exact same control code built for Wii.
SmartGlass is a very good and natural extension of the consoles. I said this was coming and been saying this was coming for awhile now. I mostly focused on Win8 and the next consoles, but I knew it was coming. It will add a lot of new features and connectivity for the devices and one of the reasons I hoped Nintendo/Sony utilize Android in some form. However, it is not even comparable to the feature set you'll get with Gamepad and its relationship to the console. Not even close.
Its more like Kinect as compared to Wiimote. Motion is core, but with Kinect you can't control movement and thus the greater majority of genres cannot be replicated with the device. Any genre can be used in Wiimote/nunchuk.
Same here with SmartGlass. Sure touch based interface could be the same. However, without the other controls it pales in comparison. Then you add in the fact that it will have far lower support... and bam. Its nothing but a media controller.
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1. Not all Wii U content will make use of the controls. For instance it didnt appear that Sing used anything other than the tablet screen for interaction. So anything that is just like this will work the same way with SmartGlass. In fact MS has said that this is just how Dance Central 3 and the new Karoke game coming this fall will work. Same can be said for how NSMBU worked with one person injecting content into the playfield. Other uses may have other implementations as well.
2. Have said it many times already, but hey why not one more time. There will be more people that own am Xbox 360 and a device that supports SmartGlass than the Wii U install base for a very long time if not forever. Many many many of the ~70 million Xbox 360s sold already are owned by people with a iOS, Android, Windows Phone and this fall Windows 8 device. So the market penetration argument doesnt fly.
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FYI, I played NSMB2 on Wii U at E3. There were virtually no controls used outside of the touchscreen interface. In fact, I don't remember any users utilizing both the touch screen and controls on any game at the same time. That is why I believe Smart Glass can replicate the WiiU features pretty easily - because it seems that Nintendo is using the tablet as either a dedicated touch screen controller, or dedicated button controller.
