Reggie Fils-Aimé explains the lack of Wii U dual GamePad support

Former Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aimé has just explained why Nintendo’s ill-fated console, the Wii U, didn’t have dual GamePad support.

“What was interesting is that with the Wii U, there was a full development plan for all of the interesting interactions and all of the interesting capabilities that the system could do, and so in that case, technically could multiple gamepads communicate with a Wii U? Answer was ‘yes’, but the install base never got large enough that that type of implementation made sense.”

Fils-Aimé also explained that it wasn’t just the console’s low install base that prevented Nintendo from implementing dual GamePad support. Also, Nintendo themselves never had “a game where you needed another GamePad in order to have a great experience.”

He also went on to add:

“In order for those initiatives to come to life (at least from Nintendo’s perspective) there needs to be a game that drives that implementation that enables the player to see why you would need a second gamepad as an example, and that game creation process is just so critical.”

The Wii U has sadly not reached its full market potential when it comes to sales. The problem lies in games themselves, and the same thing made two-player GamePad support impossible. Quite sad indeed.