Opinion: Wii on Wii U not for me

So one of the best features about the Wii U has to be the backwards compatibility of not only Wii software but also most hardware as well. You can play all your Wii games on the Wii U, you can use the 9 Wii Remotes you bought over the years and you might want to dust off that Balance Board as well. It’s a great feature.

It goes further than that though, Nintendo has confirmed that you’ll be able to transfer all of your WiiWare, Virtual Console games and Mii’s over from the Wii to the Wii U. It’s great news if your Wii is maybe getting a little old, you want to sell it or give it to family and of course get your content on your fancy new Nintendo account. How that all will work remains to be seen.

But that’s not what I have a problem with, it’s to do with the Miiverse or the lack there-of.

You see when the Wii U runs Wii software, downloadable and retail it reverts to ‘Wii mode’. This basically does what it sounds like and turns the Wii U into a regular old Wii, the news was revealed in an interview with Nintendo America’s Bill Trinnen and while he doesn’t elaborate this could mean a couple of things.

This ‘Wii mode’ might be as bad as what happens when you play GameCube games in the Wii. The system basically turns into a Gamecube, the hardware just switches mode and that’s it you’ve basically got a Gamecube in a pretty shell. Nintendo have come further since 2006 though and we’ve seen with the Nintendo 3DS when it plays DS games that the 3DS operating system is somewhat available with the home button overlay (you can quit the game, not the entire thing) and all the hardware such as the touch screen and the wireless remains intact.

So how does this affect Miiverse? Well if the Wii U is running in ‘Wii Mode’ then it’s likely not going to be one of the greatest selling points of the Wii U. Reggie Fils-Aime himself says that Miiverse and the social network aspect of the Wii U will be the killer app of the Wii U and I agree. I can’t wait to get the Wii U for the HD graphics, the new controller and tons of new ways to play for sure. The main thing I’m looking forward to is playing games with people, sharing what I do with people, talking to and interacting with Vooks readers but also people on Twitter, Facebook and my real life friends. Something I’ve never really been able to do on a Nintendo console.

While I’ve played games like Mario Kart 7 and Animal Crossing online with others, we’ve never really felt connected.

The other point is that Virtual Console games, WiiWare games and Wii retail games won’t play on the Wii U GamePad for the reasons above either.

Which brings me to my point, finally. I don’t see any reason to bring my thousands of dollars of Wii content to the Wii U if it’s going nullify a huge part of the Wii U console, one of the parts I’m most looking forward too.

Perhaps the 1GB of ram Nintendo have allocated for the Wii U operating system will mean this won’t happen, but who knows. We might not know until day one. Just think about that before you chuck your Wii into the cupboard of history.