Nintendo has revealed that theWii Uwill only support one controller at a time because of price concerns. Nintendo apparently has the technology required to support four controllers at once, but the publisher claims it’s too expensive for consumers.
“We’re not planning on asking our customers to buy multiple Wii U controllers,” said president Satoru Iwata, making the decision sound like he’s doing us a favor.
“In the future, we may look at what other opportunities there are for gameplay and, how having two of those controllers might create fun or interesting new styles of play, but of course in doing that, it would require a consumer to purchase an additional controller,” he told shareholders. “Therefore, we would need to carefully consider how we could create such an experience and, potentially, how we could ensure that there would be enough value within that experience for the consumer to accept that cost and make that purchase.”
This sounds like a weird decision to me. If Nintendo’s only concern is consumer cost, why not let the Wii U support multiple controllers and let consumers make the decision for ourselves? Unless of course, it would need to shell out more cash for extra development and it’s afraid not enough people would buy a second remote to justify it. That sounds a little less altruistic than Nintendo’s version.
