Hardware Wii U questions (just bought)

[Hanafuda]

Hey guys. My 10yo daughter finally decided she wanted the Wii U for Christmas so I bought the LOZ:WWHD bundle today. Sorry if these questions are well-covered ground around here, but please humor me. I'm old and short of patience.

Questions:

1) I know the Wiimote, nunchuck, and classic controller pro from the Wii are 'compatible,' but are they only for use when playing Wii games on the WiiU?? Are the old Wii peripherals used for any WiiU software at all? Our Wii was softmodded so I have no plans of doing a Wii to WiiU transfer.

2) Speaking of the Wii to WiiU data transfer thing, since I do have a Wii here, is the WiiU going to pester me all the time about doing the transfer?

3) From what I can see, the gamepad is not for sale separately, at least not yet. How does that work out for multiplayer? P1 on the gamepad and P2 on a pro controller? Can both P1 and P2 be on pro controllers, or is it necessary for one player to use the gamepad?


thx

 

[grossaffe]

answer to 1 and 3: Depends on the game. Different games will support different control options.

 

[MTSoph14]

1)Some Wii U games use the older accessories too

2)The Wii U can't tell that you also have a Wii as far as I know

3)Depends on the game, some games are 5 player where the gamepad player does something different, while the other 4 use splitscreen. Others will just use a combination of whatever you got (Super Mario 3D World)

 

[Slartibartfast42]

You can softmod the new Wii U if you want, well the vWii side anyways. A system transfer works fine. However, you should backup the NAND on the old Wii if you do this, so you can restore it after the transfer just in case you want to use it again.

But otherwise, Wii U games can use the old controllers. Usually though, they only use motion plus controllers. So you will want to have at least 3, if not 4 motion plus controllers if you have a lot of people playing often. Are you old controllers motion plus?

 

[Hanafuda]

You can softmod the new Wii U if you want, well the vWii side anyways. A system transfer works fine. However, you should backup the NAND on the old Wii if you do this, so you can restore it after the transfer just in case you want to use it again.

But otherwise, Wii U games can use the old controllers. Usually though, they only use motion plus controllers. So you will want to have at least 3, if not 4 motion plus controllers if you have a lot of people playing often. Are you old controllers motion plus?

One wiimote is "plus', heh. Guess I'll probably get a couple more, eventually. I understand the business about softmodding the vWii 'side' of the Wii U, I just don't see a need to bother with it, or the Wii to Wii U data transfer. I've got all the retro consoles covered with real hardware and *ahem* additional equipment, so the biggest 'loss' if you wanna call it that would be some visual clarity gain in sending the Wii picture via HDMI instead of component. I understand there is an improvement, but then again you're talking to an old man who'd just as well play Contra or Insector X on my old CRT as any game from the last 10 years.

Thanks for the info, guys.

 

[blaisedinsd]

Controller support is all dependent on the software as has been stated. There are no multiplayer games that support 2 gamepads (though it is technically said to be possible in the future).

examples

Wind Waker is single player, gamepad or Wii U pro controller (it would have been nice if they supported the Wii classic controller as well)

NSMBU for multiplayer you have to use wiimotes (pro controller works I believe after you download the latest patch) and in multiplayer the gamepad can only be used for the boost mode where you can make blocks appear and effect some enemies and hazards and such.

Nintendoland depends on the minigame. For multiplayer usually one player uses the gamepad and the others use wiimotes. The zelda mini games requires motion plus on the wiimotes. The metroid one uses the gamepad and wii motion plus + nunchuck.

Also Off TV play, where you can play the game entirely on the gamepad screen, is software dependent. I would say the majority of the games have it. Nintendoland does not but there are a few minigames you can still do anyway. ZombiU does not, Lego City does not but the others I mentioned do.

Doing the Wii to Wii U transfer is perfectly fine even if your wii is modded. It will leave anything that is not official alone and move everything else. It is cool because you can play all your wii software on the gamepad screen with out needing the TV (even hombrew if you mod your vWii on your Wii U). I even went ahead and did a nand restore after the transfer so all my Wii stuff is still on my Wii and Wii U. Only problem with that is you can no longer access the shopping channel on the old Wii or else it will disable all the stuff that was supposed to be moved.