Nintendo have given us a console capable of playing games with Mario and Sonic in them… at the same time. Now Wii U hardware can be updated over the internet to account for new features or other operating system changes and we want more! If you've recently bought a Wii U, you probably have a bundle including a game and maybe a second controller. Nice. You basically have everything you need, except for more updates to the console hardware. Hopefully you got to skip the first one.
As with PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, we'll update this list with more updates in the future. Look for more and a list of Nintendo 3DS updates we want soon.
Ability to Customize UI
Nintendo's console UI generally matches the hardware design and that's true of Wii U's launch screen, populated with Miis from around the world gathered by what they're playing and displaying messages about content. Still, we'd like to see the ability to change this screen and maybe set a different color on the tile screen (typically displayed on the GamePad controller). Miiverse messages might work well as greetings next to your most recently played software.
Quick-Start Update
Considering Miiverse's popularity with the community, it would also be a nice feature to display a larger game icon to launch right back into more Mario Kart 8 with your friend's messages, times, or drawings on the right. Other games could use this space differently or challenge their users to draw things vertically to account for displaying the three best contributions from the community. If this is being displayed on the TV and not in Quick-Start it could provide the opportunity to refresh if the user waits on this screen, preventing the need to launch into Miiverse if you'd rather start playing the game instead.
GamePad-only Minigames
Kirby's recent platformer on Nintendo 3DS offered a few different minigames aside from the main adventure and those distractions should certainly become part of each Wii U game to encourage off-TV play. Even making simple toys out of popular characters, as the company is doing with aMiibo later this year, will turn the GamePad into a tabletop gaming platform that might encourage other mathematic, engineering, or ruleset/world-building exercises.
More GamePad Activity During TV Programming
Nintendo managed to get the Wii U TV remote control features on to the GamePad (and quickly accessible with a quick press of the dedicated button), though Xbox One does TV control better now with and without Kinect. I'd like to see Nintendo beat Microsoft to the punch and deliver a better interactive platform for TV-watching before they use Snap to do a better job with the idea. Voting, Miiverse messaging events based around season finales and other Twitter-organized viewing parties, and the
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