Nintendo Teases Future Communication Between Wii U And 3DS

During E3 Shigeru Miyamoto and Shinya Takahashi, the GMs of Nintendo’s internal software development teams, told IGN that Nintendo is still experimenting with Wii U to 3DS communication, and they teased a few unannounced projects that will utilize this concept.


Nintendo has experimented with connectivity between its home console and portable systems in the past. During E3, it revealed that Smash Bros. Wii U and 3DS would transfer character data between the two platforms. But we asked why haven’t we seen more interaction between the two platforms? Is it something Nintendo still wants to explore?

“With Smash Bros., because the two games have the same gameplay and the same controls, that game in particular is designed where you’ll want to start playing on the 3DS first and build up your characters there, and then transfer that character data over to the Wii U and play with them there,” Shinya Takahashi, the GM of Nintendo Software Planning & Development, said.

“There’s no real reason that we haven’t done it yet,” Shigeru Miyamoto said. “I guess it just hasn’t really fit into the titles that we have been making and it’s not that we haven’t thought about it.”


“In fact, with Wii Fit U we created the Fit meter which connects to the Wii U GamePad wirelessly and transfers data. Within those plans we also thought about potentially having some type of functionality with 3DS that would connect to it, but ultimately we didn’t include it. We also had an idea where, if there’s a Wii U at home and maybe the father or the kids have a 3DS, then we might think up a system where the Wii U would know that you were home before your dog did,” Miyamoto said, as the room expectedly erupted with laughter.

“It was a kind of interesting concept based around that, but we ended up not doing anything with that idea. It hasn’t really worked its way into the titles we’ve been developing.”

“But there are some things that we’re working on that we haven’t announced here at E3 that do involve some sort of communication between the Wii U and 3DS,” Takahashi teased.



At this point, the two went back and forth on whether they could share a little more information. You can read a transcript of the exchange below.

Miyamoto: “We can’t say the title, can we?”

Takahashi: “Not really.”

Miyamoto: “If you were to say it, they would get really excited.”

IGN: Now you really have to say something… (laughs).

Takahashi: “We are thinking about that with Mario and Donkey Kong.”




Source - IGN