Wii U Gamepad to utilize wifi instead of bluetooth. rumor

[Sam3o]

famousringo said:

superchunk said:

famousringo said:
This was a given. Bluetooth doesn't have the bandwidth for high-quality video (Bluetooth 4.0 uses wi-fi to achieve high data speeds). It's either wi-fi streaming or some kind of obscure/proprietary spec.

Ah... I didn't know bluetooth was limited like that. Interesting.

Bluetooth is optimized for low power usage. That tends to mean short range and low bandwidth. Even stereo audio needs to be specially compressed for transmission over Bluetooth. You won't catch any audiophiles wearing Bluetooth headsets. That efficiency lets Bluetooth devices run a good long time on tiny batteries.

The Wii U tablet on the other hand is only going to last 5 hours, because it's constantly getting high-quality video blasted to it. I wouldn't be surprised if I was told the data stream chewed more battery life than the LCD screen.

That's what I've been thinking. I'm worried that the gamepad will be a power hog and suck the battery dry within a few hours. 5 hours is already meh for handhelds, and should be even worse for controllers. After my long experience with batteries in the Wii Remote, I really hope the game pad has a battery life that is at the very least comparable to that.

If not, then Nintendo should implement bigger batteries which shouldn't add much weight (or cost). Even Ipad 3 sized batteries (>11 Ah) shouldn't weigh more than 200g or cost more than 20$ if I'm not mistaken.