The Wii U essentially has a Wii inside of it

Here's a breakdown of how playing (and downloading Virtual Console and WiiWare games) will work on the Wii U. Essentially the Wii U has a Wii system inside of it as it goes into "Wii mode" to play anything Wii related.

You even have to go to the Wii Shop Channel to download Virtual Console or WiiWare games, not the Wii U eShop, just one example.

[Amazingmrbrock]

I wonder why they didn't do it properly. Shouldn't be too hard I would think.

[lashes2ashes]

Soft ware emulation is cheaper. Building hardware into the system and they would have to charge more. When Sony made the cheaper ps2 years ago they had to remove the ps1 guts that were in the "fat" ps2.

[sidar]

Wii U isn't emulating anything though. From what I understand IBM and ATI added the Wii instructions to the Wii-U GPU/CPU.

[tweet75]

im thinking more and more just to keep my wii connnected to my tv, No big deal since wii a compenent connection and wiiu is an hdmi. Just look at the wiiu for a place for all new content.

[DEZn00ts]

It really doesn't matter. Just makes it a little more "Simplicated" to download games, no biggie.

[sidar]

They could have just used the Wii interface ( code level not the GUI ) and patch their function calls trough the new Wii U menu.

This seems like a very bad design honestly. I hope they fix this.

[Gr81]

Yeah
This seems like a bad tech decision. What does this mean for the virtual console? Will wii u even offer a vc?

[PopRocks359]

Hopefully they'll make it more user friendly through an update. For now, this is kind of a bummer, though it is worth noting that they did almost exactly the same thing with the Wii's Gamecube compatibility.

[Jadedz]

The Wii's too exploitable
It isn't something I like, though at least it's BC.

[Thepcz]

yeh a bit of a strange way of implementing wii compatibility..
but at least it works.

[ninjabake]

Odd choice by Nintendo. Not feeling the way its set up.

[Nevers0ft]

Considering how easy it is to exploit the Wii, I suspect this system was adopted to keep the Wii side completely sandboxed within the Wii-U. It might be fugly, but it should be effective... Although I wouldn't be surprised to see Wii homebrew running in Wii mode at some point in the near future.

[t0mmyb0y]

I was really looking forward to playing Donkey Kong on the gamepad while gf played PS3 on the TV. SonofaB

[nypifisel]

This is kinda disappointing.. Why wouldn't they make a proper integration with the Wii U for VC etc.