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The Wii U GamePad screen will not offer multi-touch functionality, now seen as normal with touchscreen devices, but Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime doesn’t see this as a problem.
“When we went through the building of this and, given some of the functionality, we thought that single-touch was a more appropriate option, especially when you’ve got other button configurations,” Fils-Aime told Kotaku.
Asked whether the decision came down to cutting costs, he added: “Certainly there’s a cost to it. Again, we envision this as a controller that you’re putting in your hands and you’re doing a two-screen experience. The concept of putting it in your lap to do multi-touch for us just feels unwieldy.”
I think Reggie has a point. The 3DS seems just fine without multi-touch, and the only iOS games we can think of which require multi-touch are those with on-screen control systems – which the Wii U GamePad obviously won’t need because of the physical controller elements.
Pinch zooming will be lacking, but this would only be a problem on web browsing and image manipulation.
