The Wii U's model doesn't really open up that many interesting asymmetrical multiplayer game designs, compared to multiple individual devices. There's a psychological effect of everyone being in the "same space" when most people are on one screen, but mechanically most of the time you'll want the opposite of what the Wii U can do - one person can see everything but everyone else can only see some limited view (c.f. Pac-Man Vs).
With individual devices, you can make a game where N people see something different, or N-1 people see the same thing and 1 sees something different, or where N people see the same thing (and maybe also something different, c.f. the Four Swords GBAs+GC model).
With the Wii U, you can make a game where everyone sees the same thing, or N-1 people see the same thing and 1 person sees that and something else. Even if you try to make the 1 person see something disjoint, it's too easy to cheat. And if you try to make everyone but one person see their own thing - too bad.
I always wondered why they never built something to render simple (or even complex, it can't be that costly) scenes out to multiple connected (3)DSs - relatively everyone with a Wii U must have had at least one...
Smash Bros. for Wii U let you use a 3DS as a controller. It was awkward - you had to download the “Smash Controller” app onto the 3DS from the eShop - and didn’t have any kind of video streaming, but the connectivity was there at least.
With individual devices, you can make a game where N people see something different, or N-1 people see the same thing and 1 sees something different, or where N people see the same thing (and maybe also something different, c.f. the Four Swords GBAs+GC model).
With the Wii U, you can make a game where everyone sees the same thing, or N-1 people see the same thing and 1 person sees that and something else. Even if you try to make the 1 person see something disjoint, it's too easy to cheat. And if you try to make everyone but one person see their own thing - too bad.
I always wondered why they never built something to render simple (or even complex, it can't be that costly) scenes out to multiple connected (3)DSs - relatively everyone with a Wii U must have had at least one...