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Comment by pkamb | Hacker News Reader

This is the main menu for Super Smash Bros. for Wii U: http://i.imgur.com/04qZmg4.jpg

The menu items on that screen are not touchable via the Wii U gamepad touchscreen. You're required to use the control stick to awkwardly select menu items in a non-standard grid that appears to be designed for a touchscreen.

Nintendo's latest blockbuster game for the Wii U, on their touchscreen tablet console, does not have touch controls on a screen that clearly looks like it was designed for a tablet touchscreen. That is what is so frustrating with today's Nintendo in a nutshell.

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This is the main menu for Super Smash Bros Brawl for Wii: http://faqsmedia.ign.com/faqs/image/article/849/849163/vario...

You cannot use your wiimote to select the menu items, you can only use the controller's D-pad. It's how Smash games have always been. Plus, there is really no reason for you to use touch screen controls for the game.

"But we've always had crappy design sense" is a terrible excuse for continuing to have crappy design sense.

Also, when one of the primary distinguishing features of a product is a touch screen enabled device, in my opinion you always have a reason to allow use of that screen for controls in game.

i recall you needing to use the pointer to place a token on the character you wanted to select, on the very next screen.

The game only used the wiimote in the sideways controller-like configuration.

> Plus, there is really no reason for you to use touch screen controls for the game.

For the fighting, sure, but there's no reason that Nintendo's touchscreen tablet console shouldn't have touch controls for the menu.

Perhaps a better example is the T9-like keyboard you use to input player names in Smash 4. You're playing with the Wii U Gamepad, a touchscreen tablet that's the main differentiator of the console, and you're selecting T9 letters with your analog stick like you're using a Nokia phone in 1998. Why is there no on-tablet keyboard?!?

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