The Wii U was built around a fundamentally flawed premise that more screens = better experience. People can only pay attention to one screen at a time, and giving just one player at the console a personal additive screen in their hands doesn’t provide much meaningful benefit. The most widely appreciated feature of the system was simply the ability to play elsewhere in your home instead of in front of the TV, which is why they leaned hard into that portability with the Switch.

Edit: that said, the name and marketing were absolute disasters too.

[–] Redditiscancer789 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Not to be 'well ashkually' but I mean is it? People use dual and tri monitor setups for PCs all the time. Also while smart phones didn't have as much wide spread usage as they do now, it isn't uncommon for people to be watching something on their TV and messing with their phone at the same time. Maybe it wasn't flawed so much as just a bit ahead of it's time.

[–] EvilBit 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Both phone usage and PC multi-monitor usage are completely different use cases of productivity and multitasking. Most gaming, especially on console, is a strictly single-taking experience. You don’t need to do things like copy and paste on a game console. And how often do you use your phone while playing a game on your console? The Wii U asserted that it was useful to give a video game two simultaneous screens in different positions. These are many reasons why this wasn’t “ahead of its time” and why the Wii U is considered an overall miss.

[–] Redditiscancer789 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When I did play consoles honestly a fair bit when I needed a YouTube walk through. I guess I'm weird though since I like watching TV while playing games.

[–] EvilBit 1 points 1 year ago

That’s fair. But the Wii U wasn’t designed for playing single screen games while watching YouTube, really. Your phone already covers that.

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