Topic: using 2 gamepads

I remember talk around release time that you would at sone point be able to use 2 gamepads . Was this true and is it now possible ? I have seen a few gamepads for sale bear me & can think of a few great functions for having two

It's true that it was said to be a possible future implement. I'm gonna guess that it's not happening anytime soon and in fact we may very likely never see any software that tackles dual gamepad streaming. I just can't see Nintendo tapping performance in a major game to accommodate a second pad and they won't do it for an eShop title.

Hmmmm I had alsi thought this.
Which is a shame really as it could have meant some nifty little play schemes.
I was also a bit disappointed you couldn't play multiplayer with one on the tv and one on the gampad in titles like pikmin3 !

Ya it would have been cool, bulky lol, but cool. Since the Wii U has launched there has been some anti-gamepad sentiment that Nintendo may not have entirely expected but have admitted they are not surprised about because they haven't made a game that both used the gamepad like Nintendoland did AND that people wanted to buy a system for.

They have said they will try to make such a game to prove the usefulness of the gamepad after all. So at that juncture the task of using even just one gamepad attractively in a game probably puts a two-pad game out of reach for the foreseeable future.

I thought you were posting about USing 2 gamepads

^hilarious

We'll probably never see that feature now. If any game was going to sell two Gamepads, it would've been Mario Kart 8. Now it doesn't even use the one Gamepad to give us 5 player races. A second Gamepad would be a tough sell though since it would cost $100+

Hm, right now dual GamePad features would be hard to justify, since they aren't sold separately yet. Also, developers would need a smart way to stream on both simultaneously.
I can imagine someone making something like a shifted splitscreen, where 3 players are displayed on the same screen, but on shifted views. Player1 would only see the left third, Player 2 the central third, and Player 3 the rightmost part. Mario Kart could've utilized such a feature, and I'm certain that memory costs would stay maintainable, since (technically) both Gamepads receive the same video/audio stream, just positioned differently, instead of separate displays for each player (which would be 3 instances of the same game running).

... now I wonder if Nintendo ever considered this at all.

Nintendo can't even figure out how to make one gamepad useful, let alone two

if they do release a second gamepad, hopefully it will be one that at least has some functionality on it's own without being tethered to the console. like wifi, web browser, eshop, miiverse etc, virtual console, and maybe select eshop titles.

if performance is a concern with two gamepads, this migh be the answer, since the new second gamepad could stand on its own and do most of its processing by itself. of course then price might become quite an issue.

Well I think they will implement this when you can actually buy a second gamepad without having to buy another Wii U. So yeah since you can't buy the gamepad by itself then I would say not anytime soon will you be able to use two gamepads.

I would find the option to use zero GamePads more interesting.

Set it up for up to four gamepads, go back and patch Mario Kart 8 to allow 8-player local multiplayer and even add the option to go online with all 8 players, then make Nintendoland 2 with up to 8 player support. WHEEE!

A big problem with two Gamepad's is that the streaming rate would be cut in half, from 60 fps to 30. Technically, each Gamepad will get every other frame.

Get a classic controller, simple as that. Most games that don't have extensive GamePad features can be played with that easily.

Sad thing is, I was gonna say that.

Even if Nintendo added two pad support, at this point I disagree with that move. Don't get me wrong, the gamepad has lots of potential, two gamepads doubly so (pun intended), but you have to learn to crawl before you can walk. Nintendo has hardly tapped the usefulness of the gamepad, (outside of Nintendo Land, I can't think of any other first party games that truly innovated with it), Zombie U and Rayman Legends are great but not first party. It'd be a better use of their resources to utilize the gamepad better before implementing two gamepads.

Don't get me wrong, I love off tv play and use it often, but there's no real benefit of having two gamepads for off tv play, they need to show more innovation that, these days, they have been falling short with.

This is the unfortunate truth of the situation. I had hopes of being able to use 2 gamepads but its looking VERY unlikely now that many Wii U games aren't taking advantage of the controller's capabilities and potential.

Technically, performance on the console would be negligible if the way their handling streaming is done the way I think it is. Rendering to a buffer and sending it out at 60fps, but it uses the buffer not currently being rendered to. The only thing I can think of that would take a hit is the eDRAM having to store an extra buffer sized at 480p, so it holds two completed buffers while it renders to a buffer designated for which Gamepad is meant to get the next one (to which that buffer becomes the new completed buffer for that designated Gamepad). I'm thinking one of the complications may be if the rendering cycle isn't at a steady 60fps with 2 Gamepads.

I think the GamePad is used well enough to justify having it, and it can only get better.
The internet browser uses it well, Nintendo Land, Game & Wario, Lego City, more indie games will start exploiting its uses, etc. Then there's always off-TV play. Maybe they'll allow the OS to run 2 apps at once... Who knows?

I honestly thought that 2 GamePads would have been a thing, by the time Mario Kart 8 was out, but alas.

Something being technically possible and it actually being implemented are two different things. The Wii U can also technically support 7 Pro Controllers technically, it has a standard HDMI port so technically it could output to resolutions above 1080p. You don't see those sort of things because the performance would drop and there is little actual benefit.

Same for the second GamePad. Technically you could support a whole bunch of GamePads. The problem is everyone one you add gives you diminishing returns. Everyone you add costs you more, gives you less actual benefit, uses up more of the bandwidth and more of the GPU's power.