Wii U twin GamePad games due some time in 2013

Titles that support two Wii U GamePads simultaneously are expected to arrive in 2013.

Twin GamePad functionality was missing from Nintendo’s early Wii U previews but was added in after repeated requests from press and early users.

However, Nintendo’s 100+ price for individual GamePads in Japan – and the omission of a GamePad only SKU from the West altogether – has perhaps dampened the appetite for compatible titles.

Nonetheless, Nintendo America’s product manager Bill Trinen reckons that having missed the launch lineup, titles that use two controllers will arrive some time in 2013.

The reason we didn’t mention it is that, in the launch window titles, none of those are going to support dual GamePads,” he told 1UP. The launch window is all going to be single-GamePad.

The dual-GamePad functionality, we expect to start seeing that in games sometime next year. Our feeling is, we’re not going to sell another GamePad if you don’t have something to use it with. We’ll make that available as an additional accessory when there’s content to support it.”

Trinen also confirmed that launch title Nintendo Land will not support online multiplayer.

It’s not going to be played over the network. There’s actually a logical reason for why they decided to do that,” he added. Up until now, basically, when people have said, ‘What does a network mean for video gaming?’, the answer has always been ‘online play’. We look at online play and we think that it’s important, and obviously for games where it makes sense, we’re going to leverage it.

But for Wii U launch specifically, one of the things that we want people to understand is that a network connection to a game can mean a lot of different things. It can mean online gaming, but it can also mean other unique ways to connect to other people.

So for our first-party teams, particularly at launch, what they want to do is try to lead the way and show people different ways that you can use Miiverse in a meaningful way to connect the content to the Internet. They’ve put more of their focus on that Miiverse connection to Nintendo Network, rather than on online play.”