Single-Touch vs. Multi-Touch

The Wii U GamePad is not multi-touch. Not a problem, Fils-Aime said, holding a GamePad in his hands. "When we went through the building of this and, given some of the functionality, we thought that single-touch was a more appropriate option, especially when you've got other button configurations."

As he held the controller he reached into the touch screen with one of his thumbs and then tapped the screen with a forefinger. Each time, he kept his other hand on the controller.

Then he put the controller down so he could touch the screen with a finger from each hand. "Is this really the way you want to play a game? I don't think so."

Surely it would be nice to give people options? I suggested it was a cost thing. "Certainly there's a cost to it. Again, we envision this as a controller that you're putting in your hands and you're doing a two-screen experience. The concept of putting it in your lap to do multi-touch for us just feels unwieldy."

This annoys me.  If you are just tapping the trouch screen like a button then it's just another button not a U-nique experience.  Also, who the hell does multi-touch on tablets with one finger from each hand.  two fingers -- one hand.

It really is just a cleverly disguised excuse. At least it will help to make the GamePads more affordable... hopefully, which I'm sure was a strong reason for Nintendo to opt for single-touch.

So no achievements and the return of friend codes. If this is true then me and many others will be saving a lot of money this holiday by passing on this "next gen" system that can't even get basic last gen features right.

Why bring friend codes back at all? They served no purpose aside from making it much harder to connect to friends. Achievments are also a big part of games now with their own communities built around them, and it seems Nintendo doesn't care about that at all. 3DS achievments and game specific achievements are lame because there is no tracking of all the progress one has made in terms of game playing ... this kills the meta game feel of achievements.

These two things alone are enough to make me not buy a Wii U. I really have no idea how they could screw this up so bad.

The first 3DS pre-order was #239.99 I believe, but the lowest it was sold for at launch was #189.99, a #50 decrease.

The same for the WiiU would leave it at #230, the price I expected from announcement.

"We don't have a policy surrounding used games," Fils-Aime said. "We have not put in place any technology to go after the used game business."

That's probably the best news of all this!!

Multi-touch only exists because touchscreen only devices don't have buttons, so it's necessary to (feebly) attempt to replicate the effect with on screen controls.

There are one or two buttons on the Wii U gamepad...

No unified achievement system? O_o

To make it worse they aren't even making it a company wide mandate to include it in Nintendo games either? O_o

Reggie talks as if he knows best which way we want to use a tablet, so now we only get single touch? O_o


Well, that there definitely hurts plans for wide spread support for tablet specific games on the WiiU shop. Better of making them for the Vita or better yet, smartphones...

It's a gamepad with single touch screen, not a tablet. It's been said beforebut i will repeat it, the gamepad has sticks and buttons O_o

What's a Vita? just sayin...

Did we ever heard of price, consumer friendly pricing or failing console-launches with 599$, or 249$ handhelds ?

And a console packed with touchscreen-gamepad should be a powerhouse, multi-touch and for 299$?

It's no rocket sciene, is it?

Their achievement system isn't mandatory...that means many games won't feature them then.

That's not what he said.

He said an achievement system is built into the WiiU aroudn the miiverse but 3rd parties could create anything they wanted and since 3rd parties have identical achievements for PS360, I'd guess they have the same thing on WiiU.

He said you could connect to people with out trading numbers/info in real world. That it would be really simple. That all points to a normalized system where you simply ask to be friends and the person approves. No different than PS360 now.

Man, you guys get to worked up on the littlest things without actually thinking about what's being said.