Home

 › 

Articles

 › 

Gamecube Controllers Will Only Work With Smash Brothers and I Hate It!

Gamecube Controllers Will Only Work With Smash Brothers and I Hate It!

Today, Nintendo announced a bit of information that has a lot of gamers angry. A while back, when they first announced the Nintendo Gamecube Controller Adapter, they suggested that the Gamecube controller would be usable on games that support the Wii U Pro controller. However, now it seems as if that is not the case. In a statement issued to Gamespot , Nintendo said that Smash is the only game that will take advantage of the Gamecube Controller Adapter. The statement read as follows:

“The GameCube Controller Adapter for Wii U is compatible with Wii U and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U specifically – it is not compatible with any other Wii U software.”

This is… a bit problematic considering the price of the adapter. It will retail for 20 dollars, and extra Gamecube controllers, branded around the new Super Smash Bros. , will retail for 30. If you are just getting into the Smash craze, that’s an extra fifty dollars that you’ll have to devote to one game and one game alone!

There’s no particular reason why Nintendo couldn’t allow the Gamecube adapter to work with other games. They very obviously have the code library that allows Gamecube inputs to translate over to the Wii U, or else the adapter wouldn’t work in the first place. Granted, the Gamecube adapter has fewer buttons than the Wii U pro controller, specifically one less shoulder button and a couple fewer system buttons.

But there are a ton of different games that don’t utilize all those buttons, as was shown with the Wii itself. Many Wii games allowed you to use the Gamecube controller, and if there wasn’t enough buttons they would usually just allow you to use some sort of button combination.

Now here is the real rub. You won’t even be able to use the Gamecube controller adapter for Wii games that already support Gamecube controllers! For some reason, Nintendo is specifically limiting Gamecube controller inputs to work for Smash Brothers and Smash Brothers only.

Gamecube Controllers Will Only Work With Smash Brothers and I Hate It!

(Image by Gummowned.com)

A lot of you would rightfully claim that it’s difficult to create a controller library that would allow Gamecube controllers to work on Wii U games, and you would be right. But the reason why I personally have so much ire here, is because Nintendo HAS DONE IT! They had to create a code library that interprets Gamecube controller inputs for the new Smash Brothers . It’s possible that they hard coded this into the game itself… but if they did that was a massive misappropriation of resources! If they took the very same library and instead designed it to generically interpret Gamecube controller inputs as Pro Controller inputs, then their work would be over!

I don’t want to characterize Nintendo’s decision as a money grab here, but something about this feels incredibly unfair. If I already have 4 working Gamecube controllers, and I can use them for Smash , why do I ALSO have to buy 4 pro controllers for other games, and 4 wiimote and nunchuck combos as well!? While the Wii U may be the cheapest system on the market, its hidden costs like this that turn people off to it… well that and the small game library.

This of course begs the question, why bother with the Gamecube adapter at all? Third party modders are already making adapters that allow you to plug a Gamecube controller into a Wiimote, and it will give you all the functionality of a Pro controller and more!

What do you think? Will you be purchasing Gamecube controllers for use with Smash ? Do you think it’s worth it considering that they only work with one game? Let us know what you think in the comments.

To top