Wii U has "capability issues" due to single processor,says VentureBeat's Takahashi

VentureBeat's Dean Takahashi has placed his hands on Wii U during E3, and found the console has capability issues due to its single processor having to drive multiple displays.

Speaking with alist, Takahashi said this single chip has to process games onto the television screen, the main game screen, and provide imagery for the tablet controller. That's a lot of work for a system which "itself isn't that powerful."

"Nintendo only showed games with one game pad controller and the TV [at E3]," he said. "Most games out there, if you're in a social setting, you want two controllers. Nintendo didn't show any games that do that. They admitted in a Q&A that the games are going to run slower if you have two game pads and playing on a main display. That's a fairly big issue for them.

"They made a good case that you can play with one controller and multiple Wii controllers, what they call asymmetric gaming where one person is looking at the small tablet screen and trying to deploy zombies while the people playing with the controllers were all on the main screen. You come up with very creative, different kinds of games where it's one against four, or one person going online. They tried to justify and turn into an advantage this major weakness of the Wii U, but I think a lot of people saw this as a weakness.'

Takahashi said the strongest point for the console were the creative games, which explore the capabilities of the tablet and the touch screen, but still, he found there wasn't an "obvious blockbuster," out of all that was shown.

"They may have had a good one in ZombieU, but in the demos it didn't necessarily play that well," he said. "Nintendo came up as a pretty big disappointment at E3."

You can read the entire interview through the link.