Ron Gilbert: Developers unsure what to do with the Wii U

It may be a year before developers fully appreciate how to use the Wii U’s unconventional screen-controller, according to The Cave developer and industry veteran Ron Gilbert.

Speaking to Digital Spy about his latest effort with Monkey Island partner Tim Schafer, Mr Gilbert said that the Wii U proved challenging to develop for.

“What we experienced with the Wii U is probably what a lot of developers experienced with the Wii U, which is, 'What do we do with it?'” he explained.

"It was this really neat secondary controller that has a screen and you can do different things on it. When I talked to my friends who were designing games for the Wii U, it’s like, 'We don't quite know what to do with it'.”

He was clear to state that he believed the secondary screen was “really cool”, which presented interesting possibilities and that it was up to developers to fully exploit its potential.

He added: “It'll probably be about a year before you start to see games just completely nail exactly what that controller is for.”

Among the potential benefits that the second screen could bring to games, Gilbert suggested it could act as a map, world information or provide a detailed character sheet.

“Or if I was doing an RPG, being able to swap my armour or my clothing on the pad would be really neat,” the Manic Mansion developer offered.

James Lee

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James Lee is a freelance writer and analyst with extensive experience in the technology, media and games sectors. For the past few years he has provided content for internationally published industry reports, SEO companies and a variety of news-focused websites. Prior to this, James was responsible for covering news and producing in-depth features for GamesIndustry.biz while occasionally contributing to its sister-site. Eurogamer.net. In addition to this he has contributed to other notable sites such as CVG.co.uk, Edge-Online and DigitalSpy.