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Wii Remote and Nunchuk prototype for GameCube unveiled

Atheerios

Atheerios

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Oct 27, 2017
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A 2006 patent revealed that the Wii Remote was originally planned as an accessory for the Game Cube (more info here) however this is one of the few times we've had a photography of the actual prototype.

wiiremote-thumb.jpg


Pretty cool piece of Nintendo's history.
 
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Lant_War

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The prototype Wiimote looks a lot more like a controller, even if it has the same layout. I like it.
 
HeySeuss

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Wow it was pretty much a finished product. Wonder what made them realize it was worthy to build a console around
 
Bakercat

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Quite interesting that these started as just accessories for the GameCube.

Edit: now that I think about it, it might explain the GameCube backwards compat with Wii. They were already working with the GameCube hardware for the Wiimote, so whatever new hardware they felt needed for the remotes could of been similar to the GameCube and It could of been easy enough to bring back as a selling point.
 
JershJopstin

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It's interesting to wonder if Nintendo could've pulled off a 10 year console, but it likely wouldn't have worked nearly as well. The simplicity of Wii Sports working out of the box was one of the bigger draws to the casual crowd, in addition to the strong branding. It might've worked out if there was a console bundle with the remote and Wii Sports, but it probably still would've taken rebranding the GameCube or focusing on the branding of the remote to pull it off.

Not to mention the added benefits of internal memory, built-in Wi-Fi, bigger discs, and upclocking. As much as people like to say the Wii was just an overclocked GameCube, there were several key components added that made the system serviceable even in 2006. Seriously, if you think the Wii was outdated for its time because it was basically a GCN, imagine if it actually was and you couldn't have system-level avatars or connect to the internet without a separate modem. The decision to make the Wii its own thing was crucial, even if they didn't bump the specs that much.
 
Nanashrew

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SPMRP seems to have more pics on their twitter feed.

Close up of the unique memory card that attaches to the sensor bar


Close up of the sensors of the sensor bar
 
JershJopstin

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Meatwad said:
Probably realized it would be very poorly supported as a GCN accessory
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That, and they couldn't have things like Miis or VC or even built in internet support without updating the platform. I wouldn't be surprised if the decision to build a new platform around the remote was just as much due to the opportunities available to them by adding a few cheap components as it was branding.
 
SMD

SMD

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The irony of the Wiimote and nunchuck starting off life as a controller for the Gamecube given how everyone thought the Wii U was just that for the Wii.
 
Mat-triX

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My question is: if it is a gamecube accessory, why does the prototype have a Select & Home button?
 
Handicapped Duck

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That's really cool, looks like Nintendo really had the Wiimote finalized before it even was known as the Wii. I love looking back on controller prototypes just to imagine what we all would have to play with. *boomerang PS3 prototype shudder*
 
BocoDragon

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Think of how much monetary value was attached to the idea to make it an accessory for a new console.

By itself, it might have been a forgotten GameCube accessory like the Odama microphone or Donkey Konga drums.

As a stand-alone console it was the number 3 best selling home console of all time.
 

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pick that shit up by the handle with your Cubemote in the other hand and you've got yourself a sword and board
 
TheCongressman

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So I wonder if they originally intended Twilight Princess to be compatible with this on the cube before moving it to a port, or if that came up after the Wii was in development.
 
L Thammy

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I'd like to see the N64 motion control pak, if there was anything to show from that. I believe it was mentioned in the Iwata Asks for Sin & Punishment.
 
Etain

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Oh hey is the Nunchuk connected by Ethernet? That's actually really interesting to see for me!
 

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one of the teaser videos they released for E3 before 2006 was actually directly hinting at the Wiimote for GameCube, and got pulled pretty late in the game, from what I remember.

it was something like "something big is coming later this week" then.. nothing
 
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Deleted member 2474

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Are these remotes actually from the "we're making this as a GameCube accessory" phase, or are these from the "we're using souped-up GameCubes as Wii dev kits" phase? Because I'm kind of inclined to believe the latter. We already know the GameCube was the dev platform for the Wii before actual Wii hardware was available.
 

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Mat-triX said:
My question is: if it is a gamecube accessory, why does the prototype have a Select & Home button?
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Well, technically the Wii never actually had an actual Home menu, it's actually included/programmed into every Wii game separately, so any game prototype here would have had at least a placeholder home menu as well, and they probably were planning on it so people could have a way to easily recalibrate/etc the remote.

TheCongressman said:
So I wonder if they originally intended Twilight Princess to be compatible with this on the cube before moving it to a port, or if that came up after the Wii was in development.
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TP was supposed to come out well before, in 2005. Their entire booth at E3 was basically a Twilight Princess theme park, so they totally intended it, then they decided the Wii was going to take priority and delayed it to be a cross-gen title.
 
Krvavi Abadas

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I don't think this was meant to be a Gamecube accessory in the first place.

While it is true that Nintendo was experimenting with motion controls on the Gamecube, as noted by the founder of Factor 5, Julian Eggebrecht back in 2007.
When we were doing Star Wars: Rogue Leader for the GameCube actually, we had an early prototype of that controller, and that had motion control," he said. "So we thought for our style of gameplay - especially when it comes to flight - about motion control for a long time, so we were kind of anticipating it, and I was always keeping it in the back of my head.
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The patent was filed in 2006, far past those pre-Gamecube launch days that Rogue Leader was being developed in.

But the bigger evidence is in a bizarrely designed prototype of Metroid Prime 3.
MP3ProtoTitle.png

It doesn't run on Wii hardware at all, instead using a specialized Gamecube dev kit with 128MB of RAM (Normal Gamecube hardware has 43MB for comparison. While it is more than the Wii's 88MB, keep in mind that dev kits sometimes have more RAM than the final hardware to allow devs to store debugging tools outside of the normally used RAM.)
Despite this, it does have some form of support for motion controls. Though no one has figured out how to emulate them yet.
MP3ProtoDebugRevolutionMenu.png

I wouldn't be surprised if that prototype Wii controller (combined with this specialized Gamecube dev kit.) was actually meant to be a stopgap solution for devs. Allowing them to develop for the Wii's then-new motion controls while Nintendo was finalizing the Wii's specs.
 
Lynd

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I didn't think the controller design would have been that close to the final Wii design for the Cube.

And yeah they were toying with it for Cube but decided against it to have a clean slate on a new system because the Cube was poison and this wouldn't have done anything.
 
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