Wii U Video Chat Makes You Quit Games, But Nintendo “Hope To Improve”

Nintendo’s upcoming Wii U console will have a Wii U Chat application that allows you to video chat with other Wii U owners on your friends list. In an Iwata Asks interview with two of the developers behind the app, Nintendo’s president sheds more light on its features.

The Wii U Chat app lists your friends’ Miis in order of chat frequency. The ones you chat with most often are displayed first. In order to call a friend, you select their Mii and the tap the Call button.

If your friend is in the middle of a game, they will be notified of your call. If they wish to take the call, they will need to exit their game in order to video chat. However, Nintendo say they “hope to improve” in this area in the future, which presumably implies that they’re looking for ways to optimize the app it so you won’t need to shut your game down entirely in order to video chat.

If your friend isn’t logged in or their Wii U is turned off, you’ll have the option of leaving them a message that will appear on their Wii U Chat message list, or you can leave them a message through the Miiverse social network instead.

As previously reported, the Wii U Chat app also lets you doodle with your conversation partner on the Wii U GamePad screen during video chat. Nintendo say they had other ideas that they wanted to include as well, but opted to leave them out, in order to keep the app simple and easy to use.

Food for thought:

Nintendo also reveal that Wii U Chat will use a peer-to-peer connection. The initial connection between two Wii U users is established with the help of a server, but once they’re connected, the two WiI U consoles will communicate directly with one another, without the use of a server.