Discussion DS-like Wii U portable concept

[zlz1]

Recently seeing all of the advancements that have come about in the fields of Wii u portablizing, I have been considering the possibility of the creation of a handheld I've always dreamed of as a kid.

Basically the idea is that a Wii U is functionally very similar to a DS if you think about it. Two screens, bottom one is a touch screen. What if we could cram a Wii U into the form factor of a DS and make a 2DS on ultra-steroids? I believe with the current advancements happening, it's actually becoming possible. All it needs is someone who is interested and passionate enough, but also technically skilled enough to pull it off.

Now unfortunately, this project is way, WAYYYYY outside of my current ability to pull off. I only recently started learning basic soldering and I'm honestly not that good at it yet, haven't even started working on my other Wii portable that I proposed back in 2023. Wii portables are hard already, but this would be a whole other level of nightmare.

Then again though, the challenge is the very thing that attracts me to the idea of this project. The idea of doing something entirely new, making a portable that is on the absolute bleeding edge of the current technological advancements of the portablizing community is something that definitely appeals to me.

I bet once I'd complete this project I'd feel a rush of euphoria seeing it turn on that would probably only compare to getting high, and that would directly be because of all the struggling and pain I went through and the fact it's all over and that it paid off.

It would also be probably one of the most flexible and powerful portables you could possibly make, like not only would you be able to play Wii u games, but you'd also be able to play Wii, Gamecube (with modding), Nintendo DS, N64, whatever consoles are supported on virtual console, etc. if I went through with this and got it right I know for damn sure this would be an amazing device.

So yeah, that's my idea. I'll upload my design image for it later.

 

[Shank]

The "Wii U that's basically a giant DS" is pretty much the immediate idea that comes to mind for everyone when the concept of a Wii U portable is brought up. Its the immediately obvious formfactor.

The issue is that, as of writing this, at least in a portable form, the Wii U is overall a worse form for Wii and GC games. It is much larger, more sophisticated to build, and consumes substantially more power than the Wii. It will be much heavier hardware and have heavier batteries with less battery life. There are other issues with video quality being worse (iirc theres more latency, interpolated scaling, and a dark filter you can't turn off) for Wii mode content (may be fixable now or in the future, so my info may be outdated). The Wii U has come such a long way, but it still hasn't been cracked open as wide as the Wii has yet. We basically have complete control over the Wii. Homebrew on the Wii is absolutely cracked, and the things the portablizing scene have done on it are pretty wild.

A portable Wii U is appealing for Wii U games, but for Wii and gamecube games specifically, I would take a Wii portable 8 days a week. I don't see a future where that changes unless we some incredible feats in the Wii U modding scene that allow WIi and GC games to take advantage of the WIi U's additional hardware.

 

[zlz1]

The issues with higher power consumption and more difficulty and complexity in the actual build I've pretty much accepted at this point.

Issues with video quality in Wii mode arent something I previously knew about but unfortunately I wouldn't find very surprising if they were true. Perhaps they just throw the output of the Wii hardware in the Wii u through some crappy hdmi converter, I can't know since I have never owned or used a Wii U before. If the issue happens with the output displaying to the gamepad though that would make a lot of sense to me. Wireless communication and low-latency video are two things that to this day dont mix together well and I can't imagine things were any better with the tech they had in 2012. I was actually pretty shocked to find out the Wii U just streams video to the gamepad, I always assumed the gamepad had it's own processing power and handled graphics commands itself or something. If this would be the case it would be a very easy fix, just run the Wii/GC games through the top screen that acts as a TV and you're done.

A portable Wii U is appealing for Wii U games, but for Wii and gamecube games specifically, I would take a Wii portable 8 days a week.

The main appeal here is a MASSIVE library of games since 3 (officially 2 but the Wii is an updated GameCube anyway) consoles are supported, and with virtual console and additional emulators it becomes possible to play almost Nintendo's entire library up to the Wii U. The Wii admittedly probably can do all this as well, but I feel emulation possibilities are substantially bigger with the Wii U since it's significantly more powerful than the Wii.

It is true though that Wii and GC games and backwards compatibility/emulation in general wouldn't be the strong suit of one of these portables, it would be more of a bonus. The Wii I imagine is a better fit for this purpose since it can do most of these things and consumes less power. I think it's a very substantial extra feature to have though, being able to not only play HD Wii U games but also older wii and GC games all on the same device is a great feature to have even if it's not the best fit for that purpose. As long as it does the job well enough it would be good enough for me.

I think what we have to remember is that there was once a time when Wii portables were uncharted territory and GC portables were the norm. How many people in the portable community back then could've imagined that GC portables would basically completely die out in favour of Wii portables? It probably seemed like an outlandish idea back then, and look where we are now. I feel there is a very real possibility for some absolutely game-changing discoveries and advancements in Wii U portablizing once it matures.