Everyone, by now, has noticed the way that Nintendo has fallen quite silent about everything to do with the Wii U. We have little to no idea what's coming aside from the biggest first-party titles. The fact that Nintendo is still set to release games like Mario Kart, Smash Bros, and Hyrule Warriors suggests that they have not given up on the system. So why are they staying so quiet?

It's hard to believe that they'd do everything that they've been doing without having some overall plan for the system, but they haven't said a peep - they've been more secretive than usual. And I think I may have found a plausible reason why.

Let me begin with the simplest part of my idea - Steam games on Wii U. The advantages are obvious - many major titles that are heading to the PS4 and Xbox One are also heading to PC, many of which will probably be available via Steam. If Steam were to be made available to Wii U, with appropriate encouragement towards porting to the system, it would address the third-party problem on the platform. Furthermore, it would provide greater cohesion for indie developers, who would be able to link together their Wii U and PC development efforts.

But my thought goes beyond the service. Let's have a look at the original prototype Steam Box controller:

See that thing in the middle? That's a touchscreen, intended to provide the player with the kinds of shortcuts that would normally be handled by keyboard. This functionality would naturally work on the Upad. Now have a look at the new, second prototype controller:

Notice the layout. Now, compare this with the Wii U Pro Controller:

The layout is essentially the same, except for the d-pad being substituted for four distinct buttons (in the same arrangement).

Imagine Nintendo working with Valve. Nintendo would produce a "lower-end" system intended for the broader market, Valve would produce a "higher-end" system intended for playing games on max settings. The systems would share much of the same basic configuration, however (in the sense that game development across the two systems would be made to be easy, through common architectural elements). Note that I don't mean "uses Nvidia for graphics" as architecture. I'm talking about overall design, in terms of where there are bottlenecks, etc (the engine would handle generation of game code for the distinct hardware).

It all sounds pie-in-the-sky at this point, right? Well, there's more to this thought than I've said so far. Let's begin with what Valve had to say back in 2011: http://www.joystiq.com/2011/06/22/valve-interested-in-wii-u-it-fits-better-into-our-scalability/

"Wii U seems to be a lot more powerful than the previous generation," he told Joystiq. "It sort of fits better into the scalability in terms of graphics performance and CPU performance, so I think it'll be a lot easier for us to fit it into our scalability model." Valve has yet to release any of its games on a Nintendo console, though Gabe told us, "We've always loved Nintendo."

Every time Gabe is asked what his favourite non-Valve game is, he says Mario 64. And last year, there were articles about indies talking to Valve and Nintendo, trying to get them to work together: http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/10/indie-developer-tried-to-convince-valve-and-nintendo-to-work-together/ - with some success, apparently (according to that article).

EA's falling out with Nintendo has been speculated to have been because Nintendo refused to have Origin on the Wii U. If they had been in early talks with Valve about converging their efforts, this would make quite a bit of sense.

People have been speculating on various things Nintendo could do to revitalise the Wii U... what if their big idea is to re-launch the Wii U alongside the Steam Box as a pair of gaming options? The Wii U, with a modest price cut, alongside the more expensive, more powerful Steam Box, with most games having cross-compatibility, perhaps even including some select Nintendo titles.

Rumours seem to place Valve as developing their new engine, Source 2, along with Left 4 Dead 3 and Half-Life 3. Combining this with Valve's emphasis on the Wii U being well placed given their intent for scalability, etc... it seems plausible that the Wii U will be one of the target systems.

So why choose to support the Wii U over the other systems? Well, aside from Gabe's love of Nintendo, there's the element of competition - whereas supporting PS4 or Xbox One would mean fewer people having reason to buy a Steam Box (given that the specs would be relatively similar), supporting Wii U would not have such an effect, as the Steam Box's primary draw would be the PC-level quality, and Wii U isn't concerned with that sort of element; on the other hand, the Wii U's primary draw is in its relatively low price and broad appeal, the latter of which doesn't seem to be a major consideration for Valve.

This provides a good complementary arrangement, with each system providing where the other one lacks, and thus potentially making Steam U the ultimate gaming combination.

Is it highly likely? No. But I do think it's plausible. Until Nintendo announces a little more of their plan, we can only speculate... and that's a fun thing to do, anyway. The only thing we can be confident of is that Nintendo hasn't even come close to revealing their proverbial cards.

Valve already have PC in the form of their existing Steam service. What benefit is there in releasing their own console if it's just a pre-built PC? If they're going to release a Steam Box, it's going to have some differences from what you get with a regular PC. And like I said, it's not about the hardware itself, it's about the design of the hardware - that is, the balance of features, the placement of components, etc - being similar so that extra effort doesn't need to be put in to get games to work across both systems. Beyond that, it's all in the engines (Unity and Source 2 would both, naturally, be available for both systems).

If you reached any harder you would pull a star out of the sky. None of this sounds even the slightest bit plausible.

Your reasons are:
Gabe Newell likes Nintendo games
The Steam controller looks slightly similar to Pro controller on the WiiU
WiiU is not in competition with the Steam Machine (Wrong)
Steam games are easily portable to WiiU (lolwhat?)

Yes, this is definitely happening.

lol

How people play FPS with this controller? Have anybody played FPS with it?

And does it feel compared to 360/One gamepad?

Erm... none of that is what I said in regards to why I think it could happen. But thanks for the strawman. Now I just need to see if I can find him a brain.

My reasons, distilled down, are that Gabe insists on saying that he loves Nintendo, that they spoke as though they were putting support on the Wii U, that Steam Box is looking a hell of a lot like a souped-up Wii U, that EA dropped support because Nintendo refused them Origin on the system and yet Valve continue to talk Nintendo up (despite Steam not yet being on the system), and that indies have already been talking about Nintendo and Valve working together.

The observation regarding the steam controller was that the first prototype clearly borrowed an idea from the Upad, and the second prototype is nearly identical to the Pro controller (except for the sticks being replaced by these curious touch-based pad things). Keep in mind how much the various companies trademark/patent/otherwise legally control use of controllers with layouts similar to theirs. I didn't say Wii U isn't in competition with "the steam machine", I said that the Steam Box could easily be positioned to not compete directly with Wii U, such that the two systems have good complementarity, serving different parts of the market and thus minimising problematic overlap. And I most certainly never said anything about ease of porting, right now, to Wii U. What I said was that Steam Box could be configured to make porting easy between it and Wii U.

Your nonsensical interpretation of what I said comes down to, I suspect, two major misunderstandings:

1. Steam Box hasn't been released. There have been rumoured specs, and specs for some beta boxes that have been sent out (those specs varying from box to box), but nothing more. It's a system in development. Thus, one can't really comment on existing porting capability, etc, but can only speculate. I was not asserting the existing Steam platform (the service that works with regular PCs) was like the Wii U in any sense.

2. My argument isn't about similarity, but reasons behind the similarity. When Valve's controller prototypes get more like Wii U controllers, that makes me think that there's more to it than coincidence when combined with the other evidence I put forward.

Only if you completely ignore the substance of my argument and focus entirely on the superficial stuff, and then confuse "Steam Box" with the PC Steam platform, confuse a single instance of Gabe saying he likes Mario 64 with a series of comments by Valve about how much they like Nintendo and the Wii U, and confuse an argument from convergence with an argument from similarity.

But thanks for contributing.

That could be so...BIG..

And think of it.. (the ones not liking this iddea)

If Nintendo made a more powerful Wii-u.. let's call it a Wii-U+ (that should not be the name.. but follow)

Nintendo shows a more powerful wii-u.. running linux and have a wii-u inside (like the wii today) at e3..

It will only get nintendo games as older/normal wii-u users can run to.. (and all other wii-u 3 party) but the "WiiU+" could have more HD space , AND a Steam channel.. basicly a pc killer.. becourse it will do everything a pc can.. and have a nice touch pad/screen controller/viever/off tv player (at same time.. redesign upad.. made the screen a litle bigger and shaper design)

I like it.. but offcourse steam and nintendo would have to make some deal.. perhaps 25% of steam profit, generated by wii-u.. go to nintendo.. and Nintendo could sell some games on steam.. making steam much more family friendly

Nintendo will not partner with Western companies in that way. It's just not what they do.