Gaming Stream Wii games to Gamepad?

Dead End

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Do you think it will be possible for the Wii U's Gamepad to act like a screen for Regular Wii games, Possibly using the buttons and sticks for games that support classic controllers.. A good example would be SSBB..
 

Clarky

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depends how backwards compatibility is achieved i would guess, will the guts of a normal wii be in there to ensure perfect bc or if emultion will be brought in. i would wager no due to the wiimote though
 

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It seems like it would be a good fit, Even thought gamecube games didn't support the Classic Controller, The sensor bar is there for Wiimotes, dispite the small screen size would fare badly against games like Wii Sports (Resort)

All the Wii U has to do is output the display to the controller like it would with any Wii U game
 

machomuu

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hopefully.
but the gc never supported classic controllers or wiimotes
That's because Gamecube games were played in Gamecube-Mode; they didn't use the Classic Controllers or the Wiimotes because they couldn't access Wii functionality. When a Wii goes into Gamecube-mode, it basically turns into a Gamecube.
 

LightyKD

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I wonder if the sensor bar is still in the Wii U controller. Last year it was rumored that there was a sensor bar along with the camera for Wii remote and Nunchuck support with tablet play.
 

HiroshiYamauchi

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It's a good idea, if they could make the Wii U Gamepad act as a Classic Controller, it would be very interesting. The Wii games would look much better on the the small screen than on TV.
 

Taleweaver

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I would think so, yes. The whole "you can use the wiiU controller while someone else watches television"-stuff gets thrown out of the window on games that use both screens, but for wii games it should be fine*. Didn't the gamepad even had a sensor bar for the wiimotes?



*obviously, games like red steel 2, wii sports resort or boom blox will be rather awkward to play
 

Alexrose

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I wouldn't be surprised if it used a Wii hypervisor and switched off all the Wii-U specific components when you run a Wii game, in which case, no it wouldn't be possible.

Plus, doesn't the game have to be programmed to selectively screen what it will send to your controller? In which case that feature won't be hard coded into the Wii games, so unless there was a lower level command from the Wii-U itself, then I wouldn't expect you to be able to do so.
 

Thulinma

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Remember how the Wii uses different IOS versions and a game can work on pretty much any IOS version that came out after that game did?
I would not be surprised if the WiiU didn't use a hypervisor or an emulator for Wii games, but simply runs them on a special IOS version that "only" support Wii-like features.
If they indeed did this, it would allow (technically, at least) for some cool stuff:
  • Indeed, streaming video to the gamepad.
  • Wii games that get extra features when played on WiiU (similar to how some DS games get extra features on DSi/3DS)
  • Support for the newer WiiU controllers, resolutions, higher framerates, etc.
  • Being able to suspend Wii games just like WiiU games can be (Wii games are not suspended when you push home - you're still in the game, every game just contains that same "pause" screen!)
Of course Nintendo may very well not have done this, since it puts the system at risk from any Wii game that has known exploits (unless them somehow have patched for this, but that would be difficult). Unless they disable nearly all WiiU functionality in this mode, of course... which they may have done. A hardware hypervisor like they did for GC support in the Wii would be more secure - but that of course also means any Wii hacks/exploits will work on the WiiU too, albeit in "Wii-mode" (so, useless).

I do very much wonder how they have solved the problem of the old Wii menu. How do you install Wii channels into the WiiU? How do they show up? What mode do they run in? etc. Looking forward to hearing more about this in the future :)
 
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Deltaechoe

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This really will all depend on how the sandbox will work, we won't know until we have more information as to how the WiiU is playing previous gen games
 

keran22

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It strikes me that this is exactly the kind of feature that will be achieved by the homebrew community, as opposed to Nintendo themselves.
 

Alexrose

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It strikes me that this is exactly the kind of feature that will be achieved by the homebrew community, as opposed to Nintendo themselves.

Literally the opposite of what happens. That's like saying the homebrew community should be able to get wiimote/nunchucks to work with GC games. Only Nintendo can make this possible.
 

keran22

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It strikes me that this is exactly the kind of feature that will be achieved by the homebrew community, as opposed to Nintendo themselves.

Literally the opposite of what happens. That's like saying the homebrew community should be able to get wiimote/nunchucks to work with GC games. Only Nintendo can make this possible.

That's one example. I was being more general, in terms of the community regularly making adding features via homebrew.

Besides that, there's no tangible benefit in trying to get wiimote/nunchuks working with GC games so noone would waste their time on trying to make it happen (just like nobody bothered trying to get a gba emulator working on the DS for years). There is a clear and real benefit to getting a Wii game running on the gamepad, at the very least moreso than getting wiimote working with GC games. So in short, no, probably not 'literally the opposite'.
 

Alexrose

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It strikes me that this is exactly the kind of feature that will be achieved by the homebrew community, as opposed to Nintendo themselves.

Literally the opposite of what happens. That's like saying the homebrew community should be able to get wiimote/nunchucks to work with GC games. Only Nintendo can make this possible.

That's one example. I was being more general, in terms of the community regularly making adding features via homebrew.

Besides that, there's no tangible benefit in trying to get wiimote/nunchuks working with GC games so noone would waste their time on trying to make it happen (just like nobody bothered trying to get a gba emulator working on the DS for years). There is a clear and real benefit to getting a Wii game running on the gamepad, at the very least moreso than getting wiimote working with GC games. So in short, no, probably not 'literally the opposite'.

Yes, literally the opposite, it's low level hardware coding, the community codes software. It's been 3 years since MIOS has launched and still it's impossible to use USB devices with the GC, so you can't USB load them. That's a pretty big deal and that's just enabling USB. Try enabling a Wii-U controller and making it stream in Wii mode. Good luck with that.
 

keran22

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It strikes me that this is exactly the kind of feature that will be achieved by the homebrew community, as opposed to Nintendo themselves.

Literally the opposite of what happens. That's like saying the homebrew community should be able to get wiimote/nunchucks to work with GC games. Only Nintendo can make this possible.

That's one example. I was being more general, in terms of the community regularly making adding features via homebrew.

Besides that, there's no tangible benefit in trying to get wiimote/nunchuks working with GC games so noone would waste their time on trying to make it happen (just like nobody bothered trying to get a gba emulator working on the DS for years). There is a clear and real benefit to getting a Wii game running on the gamepad, at the very least moreso than getting wiimote working with GC games. So in short, no, probably not 'literally the opposite'.

Yes, literally the opposite, it's low level hardware coding, the community codes software. It's been 3 years since MIOS has launched and still it's impossible to use USB devices with the GC, so you can't USB load them. That's a pretty big deal and that's just enabling USB. Try enabling a Wii-U controller and making it stream in Wii mode. Good luck with that.

Well, neither of us can know for sure. Your argument is based off of the difficulty for using Gamecube on the Wii in this gen, neither of us can know what it'll be like when the WiiU releases. We'll see what it'll be like when it's released.
 

Alexrose

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Well, neither of us can know for sure. Your argument is based off of the difficulty for using Gamecube on the Wii in this gen, neither of us can know what it'll be like when the WiiU releases. We'll see what it'll be like when it's released.

It's more to do with the fact that this is hardware peripheral coding, and not software coding, which the homebrew community has always been second rate at (and rightly so). To say it's something the homebrew community should achieve instead of Nintendo is daft. Nintendo are ones with full control over their hardware.
 

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