In an interview between Miyamoto and gameinformer, an interesting reply was given on the TV-less nature of Wii U:
| Nintendo has made clear that the Wii U controller is not a portable gaming device. Were there ever plans for it to be its own self-contained system that you could take with you? That’s a tough question. I guess what I should do is explain where the idea started from. The concept for Wii U came from, “where do we want to take the future of home console gaming?” Particularly with the thinking that the home console is something that’s connected to the TV, we started to think about how we can leverage the TV and interact with it in different ways and use that to change the living room entertainment experience. What we didn’t do is look at in terms of how can we connect a portable gaming device to a console. One of the challenges with the home console is that up until now for the home console to function is it has to be connected to the TV. Particularly now when turning on the TV doesn’t instantly bring up an image, it takes time for the picture to come up, or someone else is using the TV, that then creates barriers for people to use the home console. What we thought was what can we do to make this device that anyone can access instantly at any time regardless of what’s happening on the TV? How can they use this controller to very quickly turn on the system, see what’s new there, see what their friends have been playing, and have instant access to that. What we decided is that in addition to the TV screen that the console is going to use, we needed an additional screen that is quick, easy access to everything that the system has to offer. |
Remember reading someone from NIntendo talking about the Wii remote design influenced by the TV remote and that simply pressing power would bring up the console in the TV displaying the menu full of channels, etc. This didn't happen on all TV's, for example I had to manually select the feed from the actual TV remote, the Wii remote couldn't get away from the true remote. The Wii U solves this problem with the U controller, it'll be located somewhere accessible in your media room comfortably resting on a cradle waiting to be turned on. You'd just lift the controller to casually browse for content, like Miyamoto said, one less hurdle to get there.
