Nintendo Wii U to get dual touchscreen control support?

Nintendo Wii U to get dual touchscreen control support?
Wii U - needs more touch

The Nintendo Wii U is set to get dual touchscreen controller support, according to a developer, debunking the rumour that only one tablet device would work with the console at a time.

Nintendo's next-gen console surprised many when it was announced back in June.

This was mainly due to the fact that the announcement focused mainly on the innovative touchscreen controller rather than the console itself.

While the idea of a massive touchscreen controller is an interesting one and one that taps into the popularity of tablets, dev partners working with Nintendo had hinted that only one controller would be able to be used with any given game.

Now it seems that Nintendo is working on a fix to make sure that at least two people can use touchscreen controls.

This is according to Develop Online, which has an unnamed source who is indicating that work is under way to make sure that the Wii U has this functionality.

Tablet support

"Nintendo now know they absolutely need to support two tablets," explained the unnamed source, which we have dubbed HP.

"At E3 they didn't commit to this, but they know how important it is to make it technically feasible to support two screens.

"Even if that affects framerate, as a developer and player, I don't care. It needs to work. Developers will design appropriate games for this. If you're building a quiz game you're not going to give a shit about the framerate."

If HP is right then we will get a Wii U which sounds a lot more attractive to those who like to play multiplayer games with real people and not just over the a web connection – there are some still around, right?

The Nintendo Wii U UK release date is still unknown with some reporting it could be as early as April and others as late as June.

Via Develop Online

Marc Chacksfield

Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.