Please note the following article is my honest and non biased analysis of the Wii U gamepad. It is very obvious I love Sony but I also loved Nintendo pre-Wii. Nothing in this post will be sarcastic, trolling, or have a bias towards one company or another. With that said, please enjoy.

The Wii U is a revolutionary new console from Nintendo with a brand new take on the traditional controller. Similar to the Wii's remotes, the Wii U's gamepad changes how games are played. The Wii made motion gaming a household experience while the Wii U is bringing dual screen gaming to the living room. The console's specs are great but for obvious reasons everyone is focused on the controller.

Just looking at that picture a casual gamer who didn't know better would think the gamepad was a portable system. This is the Wii U's identity crises. No I'm not arguing a similar argument to the 3DS being confused for the DS; my discovery is far more fatal. To really understand this problem we need to go back to 2006 and look at the Wii. Every gamer remembers first seeing the controller and thinking "it looks like a TV remote" and indeed it does.

This wasn't a problem however for the Wii because the similarities were skin deep. After only a second of playing it was obvious the wiimote was not a remote. Nintendo had transformed a menial tool for changing channels into an innovative way to interact with games. No one is upset when the wiimote can't control the TV. The gamepad however is another story.

Nintendo this time around is transforming a handheld system into an innovative way to interact with games. This is problematic because Nintendo has "left in" the portable. When ignoring the TV the gamepad acts and feels like a handheld. At the same time when focusing soley on the TV the gamepad replicates a traditional controller. So which one is it?

It does look similar to current generation handhelds but the Wii U is just too big and awkward to feel as good as them. Unlike the 3DS and Vita, the gamepad has large spaced out buttons and a lot of unused space. This makes use of the touchscreen problematic. In order to freely touch any location on screen the user must let go with one of their hands; a huge no no for action games. Holding the device and using both buttons and the screen is just impossible. The Wii U gamepad tries to be like a handheld system but just isn't as good. Not too suprissing since this is a home console after all. What you don't expect is it to fail on the traditional controller battlefield too.

Why is the pro controller being released? It's because even Nintendo agrees the gamepad can't compete with Microsoft and Sony controllers. The gamepad feels bad when only using the buttons because the ergonamic bumps on the back are too small for this. When holding the controller only parts of your hand actually touch plastic. The rest is awkwardly forced to be suspended in air. Factor in that the shoulder buttons are not even triggers and it is obvious the gamepad is inferior for intense gaming.

So then what is the gamepad? It fails as a handheld and fails as a traditional controller. A jack of all trades but a master of none. Discuss!

The pro controller is being released for 2 reasons... one, because buying separate Wii U gamepads is mad expensive, and two because the system only supports 2 of them, so without alternative controller options like the "pro" controller or backwards compatibility with Wiimotes + nunchuks you wouldn't be able to have more than 2 player local multiplayer.

And the not being able to use the touch screen and buttons simultaneously isn't an issue, because no game forces you to use the touch screen as a replacement for buttons, only for special features like the room scanning / lockpicking in Zombie U, or as a quick select inventory in action/adventure games like Darksiders II, where you're going to temporarily stop what you're doing to select / manage inventory anyway.

That's what Nintendo is telling us but no hardcore gamer is going to use the pad for a seriously intense game.

That is such a BS excuse. Game developers understand the issue and are working around it. That doesn't mean it isn't a problem.

Yep. Nintendo is much more likable when they get dominated by Sony.

Nintendo clearly doesn't think that the Gamepad is inferior/can't compete with Microsoft and Sony's controllers, They simply wanted to make a system that could offer a wide range of control inputs. The Wii remote + is for those who like motion controls, The Pro controller is for those who like traditional controls, and The Gamepad combines standard buttons, motion, and touch controls to create a super controller.

You see, even though you dislike the Gamepad, you can still enjoy Wii U games with either the Wii mote or Pro controller. We already know that quite a few developers are giving us gamers the option to choose wich ever control style we want to use ( e.g. COD BLOPS 2)

Granted some games are developed with the Gamepad as the primary/only controller, like Scribblenauts unlimited. The Gamepad's touch screen is essential since you will constantly need a keyboard to type in nouns quickly. Granted you can technically use a traditional controller for this, but using the d-pad/analog stick to select letters would just be a chore.

Really nice read! It touches some good points. I have not touched the gamepad so I can't confirm if it's insufficient as a controller like you claim. Comfort is the only issue you bring up. That and the touch screen being a reach. I still see the addition of a touch screen being an exclusive bonus that only adds to the game you are playing. Jmo

Well, clearly the Gamepad is not a portable system; playing a game on it instead of the TV is meant to appeal to people who need to free up the TV or people like my girlfriend who use their tablet/phone with other stuff going on or people like my mom who play their DS while watching TV programs. Now you can play a full-fledged console game in this way on a nice 6 inch screen.

What I can't "grasp" (pun intended) is how you think that the Gamepad is inferior in your hands to a Vita or a 3DS. Having enough plastic to comfortably get a grip on the D-pad feels far superior to me over a standard 3DS, and the hand cramping I've experienced using Vita's shoulder buttons is also alleviated with the Gamepad. These kinds of problems are the price you pay for portability with such small devices, and the WiiU Gamepad doesn't suffer from these problems. Having to let go of the controller with one hand in order to fully utilize the touch screen isn't a problem for me, unless you were required to use all of the buttons at the same time, which, as someone else said in your other thread, is bad game design.

Finally, the existence of the Pro isn't because Nintendo agrees that the Gamepad can't compete, but rather, is there to accommodate those who prefer traditional controllers (choices are good) and for full-button multiplayer, which is a no-brainer.

I can't wait till I hear how Sony fans will defend the PS4's control scheme if it ends up "emulating/being inspired" by the Wii U gamepad.

So we need another thread for you to express your opinion on the gamepad? You don't like it, we get it.

The control scheme is fine. My problem is with the execution.

I went back and tried out the Wii U some more after hearing your responses. In this thread I'm not blindly saying I don't like the gamepad because of how it feels. Instead I'm talking to a much larger audience to how it is stuck between handhelds and classical controllers without declaring itself one or the other.