The Screen in Your Hands

Nintendo's Wii U brought a unique tablet-like controller and Off-TV Play to home gaming, pioneering ideas later perfected by the Switch.

After the Wii turned bowling nights into a global living-room ritual, Nintendo faced a strange problem: how do you follow a console that seemed to have already invited everyone? In 2012, the answer was the Wii U, a home system built around a tablet-like controller and the promise that the television no longer had to be the only screen in the room.

Nintendo had shown the idea at E3 in 2011, but even then the message was slippery. Was this a new console, or a new controller for the Wii? The machine launched in North America on November 18, 2012, with a Basic Set at $299.99 and a Deluxe Set at $349.99. Europe followed on November 30, with prices set by retailers, often around £250 to £300 in the United Kingdom.

The console itself was a small, glossy box, Nintendo’s first home system built for high-definition games. The real star was the Wii U GamePad: a wide controller with buttons, sticks, motion sensors, a camera, speakers, a microphone, and a touch screen just over six inches across. It was not quite an iPad, not quite a handheld console, and not merely a controller. It streamed video from the Wii U over a short-range wireless connection.

That made Off-TV Play genuinely useful. In a flat, a dorm room, or a busy family house, a game could continue on the GamePad while someone else used the television for football, a film, or the news. Nintendo also pushed “asymmetric” play, where one player saw private information on the GamePad while everyone else watched the television and used Wii Remotes.

Nintendo Land, bundled with the Deluxe Set in the United States and included in many European premium packs, explained the concept better than most advertisements. Its mini-games borrowed from Metroid, Zelda, Animal Crossing, Luigi’s Mansion, and more. One player might act as the ghost, the guard, or the pilot, while the others chased, hid, or fought on the main screen. At its best, the Wii U felt social, odd, and very Nintendo, as if the coffee table had become part of the game.

But the name hurt it. “Wii U” sounded like an add-on, and early marketing often focused on the GamePad more than on the console under the TV. Backward compatibility with Wii games and controllers was good for buyers, but it blurred the message further. Many casual players who had bought Wii Sports never understood that this was a new generation of hardware.

The timing was difficult, too. The Wii U used an IBM Power-based processor and AMD Radeon graphics technology, and its best games could look crisp and colorful in HD. Yet it arrived only a year before PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Once those more powerful machines became the industry baseline, bringing major third-party games to Wii U was often expensive and awkward.

At launch, the shelves did not look empty. There was ZombiU, Assassin’s Creed III, Mass Effect 3, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, and New Super Mario Bros. U. But support faded fast. Electronic Arts pulled back. Ubisoft’s Rayman Legends, once planned as a Wii U exclusive, was delayed and released elsewhere too. Watch Dogs eventually arrived on Wii U late, after the wider conversation had moved on.

The sales were stark. The Wii had passed 100 million units worldwide. The Wii U finished at about 13.5 million, below the GameCube and far behind its direct competitors. For Nintendo, it was a rare home-console failure.

And yet the library was much better than that number suggests. Super Mario 3D World was bright, fast, and full of four-player chaos. Mario Kart 8 added anti-gravity racing and some of the series’ finest tracks. Super Smash Bros. for Wii U became a party favorite. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze was demanding and beautifully made. Pikmin 3, Bayonetta 2, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, and Super Mario Maker all showed Nintendo’s designers working with real confidence.

Splatoon, released in 2015, mattered even more. It was a new Nintendo series built around colorful team battles, ink, fashion, and territory control rather than soldiers and bullets. Its matches were quick, stylish, and strategic. On a struggling console, Splatoon felt like fresh air.

The Wii U also had Miiverse, Nintendo’s strange, moderated social network where players posted drawings, jokes, and tips from inside games. It was imperfect but charming. For a while, it made a low-selling console feel unexpectedly alive.

Then came the afterlife. When the Nintendo Switch launched in 2017, many Wii U games found the audience they had missed: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Pikmin 3 Deluxe, Bayonetta 2, Captain Toad, and Super Mario 3D World. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild launched on both Wii U and Switch, but history remembers it mostly as the Switch’s opening triumph.

That is the story of the Wii U. It had the seed of a brilliant idea: personal-screen console play. But it was tied to the living room, weakened by confused branding, and starved of steady support. The Switch made the idea obvious in one glance: pick it up, play anywhere, dock it when you get home.

The Wii U failed in the marketplace, but it was not wasted history. It was Nintendo’s awkward prototype for its next great success, a quiet bridge between motion-control living rooms and hybrid play. The GamePad’s small screen went dark; the idea lit up again in players’ hands.