Should the next Nintendo console be compatible with Wii U?

If it has backward compatible, great & if its not then its not Im not fuss. I keep my consoles. :p

they should definitely keep the gamepad as peripheral for next gen...just like they kept the wiimote for this gen...they should keep the wiimote for next gen as well btw.

they can use it for offtv play in their next console. im sure at least nintendo games will have that option if you still have the gamepad.

Not sure what they are going to do. The wiiU's success will determine what happens. I honestly think they should go for something completely fresh.

I was thinking they'd do something like a transformable controller; You can change it from one type of controller to another, without the need of attaching/removing things.

yes it should.

Do you mean Wii U games and controllers being compatible with the next Nintendo console?

Or are you talking about what I said about a transforming controller?

I think it is better for Nintendo to get rid of the Wii brand for the next console, allowing themselves for a new start and avoid further confusion with costumers (as if there wasn't any already). Still, I think that will be determined by the success or failure of the Wii U, as YoshiYogurt said (cool name, by the way).

I didn't say they should keep the Wii brand. I think doing so would make things worse.

wii u games and controllers.

Sorry, I didn't explain myself correctly. For them to maintain backwards compatibility, it would require some sort of connection to the Wii brand, which I think could be damaging depending on the outcome of the Wii U situation. Besides, I've read a lot of developers stating that developing for the Wii U, compared to the development process for Microsoft and Sony consoles, is overcomplicated. This makes me think Nintendo should adopt a more developer friendly architecture for its next console, which would make backwards compatibility more difficult to achieve. I wouldn't mind getting rid of that since I keep all of my games and consoles, but I definitely understand why people would want it.

Let me start by saying I'm a huge fan of BC. No other medium makes your library obsolete when new hardware comes out. Also, I keep my games and play them from time to time. I don't only play what's current.

With that said, I don't think BC NEEDS to happen on the next Nintendo console. But only if it's under the circumstance that Nintendo moves away from the Wii name and that they're changing their architecture to closer resemble a PC, like PS4 and Xbox1.

If Nintendo gets rid of the Wii brand, and announces a more traditional "Ultra" Nintendo console, then I can forgive the lack of BC. I would have the hope that this new console would be like the Super Nintendo, where Nintendo released many great games, and the 3rd party support was there. I would also hope that the Virtual Console is fully matured by then and includes games from the NES, Gameboy, SNES, GBA, and N64. I think there are still plenty of Wii's out there to cover anyone who'd want Wii and Gamecube games.

To me, that scenario would be the best way to keep most of my Nintendo library, while allowing Nintendo to develop a completely new console, without the burden of having to make BC work.

Now, the best would be that the new architecture miraculously also plays Wii U games, or emulates them perfectly, but that's asking too much.

they should be able to keep the same cpu architecture if they beef it up more, but they'll have to have the entire wii u gpu in the new console like with wii's gpu in wii u. Gpu compute by that time will be even more important than it will be for ps4, so they can probably get away with using the cpu architecture a fourth time, crazy as that sounds.

That said, i'm not sure how I feel about bc for the next console. I think like others have said I want them to scrap the wii brand and go all out with the hardware next time, back to basics like. BC will add to costs, and they should be trying to maximize the power and ease odf use for the next console. Then after that the next console would have BC, naturally.

BC would be nice but think about this - you're going to end up having to keep an extra console anyway because none of their consoles will be BC for 3 generations, so it really makes no difference. Like with WII U, it plays wii games but you'll have to keep your wii or even gc around to play gc games if you want. Same thing would happen again this time, even if it does play wii u games it won't play wii.

But GameCube games and controllers were compatible with the Wii, and the Wii wasn't called "GameCube 2" or something.

Backwards compatibility is a good thing, but Nintendo is going to need a brand new CPU architecture for the next generation. By the time this console cycle is up, their current architecture will be beyond obsolete(it's not even very good in the first place). You can only hang on to old tech for so long before people don't want to work with you at all because of it. Without similar hardware on board, you won't have backwards compatibility unless you add in chips to make that possible, as Sony did for PS2 games on the PS3 for a short time. This will, of course, jack up the price. Backwards compatibility is, unfortunately, a casualty on the road of progress. It is possible for Nintendo to get into the Cloud area of gaming and emulate games remotely, though.

Wii & Wii U peripherals should be compatible with the next generation machine. The Pro controller, Wii Remote, and Gamepad offer a huge variety of non-generic interfaces that provide developers with plenty of opportunities for traditional and non-traditional gaming experiences.

it will be theres no question , ds was bc w gba gba was w gbc gb gbc was w gb wii was with gc wiiu was w wii plus you could download a great selection of nes snes genesis etc games, n64 had less of a selection I guess due to the fact most of its games came from rare and we all know the story there ,

Yes it should.

Or Nintendo's will be even more dead.

Yep.

All they got to do is make it more powerful and upgrade the hard drive.

BC as much as possible.

If Nintendo continues using their modified Blu-Ray Discs. Then the 7th Nintendo home console should be B/C with Wii U. But if Nintendo Switches from Power PC tech used in the Gamecube, Wii and Wii U. Then it might not be worth the hassle of having Backwards compatibilies.

New consoles should ALWAYS be backwards compatable. The Wii was comptable with the Gamecube, despite it not being a huge seller and I remember going into Gamestops years after the Wii's launch and seeing a rack of used GC games. I know a lot of Wii owners who didn't have GC's who took advantage of the opportunity to catch up on GC games they missed. All the Nintendo handhelds from the GBA on were backwards comptable as well and it immediately increases the library. Especially at launch when there aren't a ton of games and as we see, there's almost always a drought at launch for 6mos to a year before some killer exclusives come out. Also now that Nintendo has unified accounts between the 3DS and WiiU shops, I also want all that to carry over.

Yes I think it was stupid that Sony and MS didn't include backwards compatability. They claim it was too expensive but I know MS could've ditched all those stupid TV features and fine the whole disc thing was hard, there was NO excuse for downloaded titles to no carry over. I remember a post from an early PS4 adopter of how he played a couple titles he got and now it was collecting dust and he was back to playing old 360 games. I think all X1 and PS4 owners now are in the same boat. Either go buy a title you already had only with a facelift, or let it collect dust or watch movies until the next games come out.

@kbaily: I'm not going to pretend I know all the technical challenges involved in supporting backwards compatibility, but I think some people underestimate the cons of BC. I feel it's certainly great to have BC but only if implementing it is reasonable. If maintaining backwards compatibility for a new console means taking development time away from other potential new features then I'm against it. I'm also not for backwards compatibility if it ends up raising the price by more than 10%.

Having support for the Wii U peripherals would be a good idea and cheap to include since little if any extra hardware would be required to support them.

If you're always trying to support the last generation of software it makes moving forward more difficult.

I think they should go for a fresh start with there next system. Many of the Wii U's problems originally spawned from people been unable to tell it apart from the Wii, the name was a big part of that but it also doesn't help that the system also requires Wii Remotes for many games. They need to avoid anything that could potentially cause these same problems again.

No Nintendo could save money and use it on something else for the system like power.

Unless they find a way to drastically decrease costs of the gamepad, no. Wii compatibility is nice because all you have to do is pop in the wii disc and sync a cheap Wii controller. The gamepad is expensive and if they don't support it as the main controller on the next console won't be very efficient for BC.

@TransformerRobo: Sorry, I totally forgot for a moment about that. You're right, but as well, there's the issue with the Wii U's architecture, which I think should be changed to a more appealing one for the next generation.

i'd rather it be fully compatible with the Gamecube

Backwards compatibility would not only require it come with a tablet controller, again making the console $150 more expensive than it should be, it would also require the console itself to include the near field communication tech to stream to the thing.