And, of course, there was the Wii U in 2012. Though it represents a cringeworthy period of Nintendo history, the Wii U served as a necessary predecessor to today’s Switch, allowing the company to experiment with its own brand of dual-display gaming and welcoming developers to think in new ways. Rayman Legends was arguably the most successful iteration of second-screen thinking, allowing players to drop into the game and take control of a character via the Wii U GamePad, which sported a touchscreen. Other games took advantage of the Wii U’s weird design, including ZombiU, The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD, The Wonderful 101, Deus Ex: Human Revolution and New Super Mario Bros. U. Overall, though, the Wii U was a flop and its screen-embedded controller felt like more of a gimmick than an industry-shifting innovation.
As the Wii U was trying to find its footing, Xbox revealed SmartGlass, an app for Android, iOS and Windows 8 that would enable additional functionality for Xbox 360 games. This is closer to the pure, iPad-driven dream of second-screen gaming, utilizing existing hardware to augment games. In Dead Rising 3, for instance, SmartGlass enabled additional missions, map options and the ability to call in drone support to take out hordes of undead with a single blow. Participating games were still playable in full without second screens, but the app provided fresh ways to interact with digital worlds.
SmartGlass also allowed users to control the Xbox 360 itself from phones and tablets, which was a big deal at a time when Microsoft was pushing non-interactive entertainment options like live and streaming TV. SmartGlass was fun while it lasted, but in the end, few titles took advantage of the tech and the entire thing eventually evolved into the Xbox app. Today, it serves as a hub for buying Xbox games and activating Xbox Game Pass, the company’s monthly subscription service.
Of course, the alternative-play industry didn’t start with Xbox or even Nintendo. The true granddaddy of second-screen gaming was the Visual Memory Unit for the Sega Dreamcast. Originally released in Japan in 1998, it was a Frankenstein monster mash-up of three things: a memory card, an auxiliary display and a tiny standalone console, complete with directional pad, action buttons and the ability to connect to other VMUs. The device augmented Dreamcast games, displaying useful stats and enabling mini-games in certain titles. For example, Sonic Adventure had Chao Adventure, a Tamagotchi-style experience played entirely on the VMU, while Quake III Arena had a maze game.
Sega dropped out of the console industry in 2001, discontinuing the Dreamcast and VMU. But for most people who got their hands on one, the VMU remains a bright, warm memory of gaming goodness. The most disappointing thing about it was that more games didn’t take advantage of its weird feature set.
This seems to be the sticking point with second-screen gaming: developers. Console manufacturers can release hardware with as many screens as they want, and there can be nearly 4.8 billion smartphones and tablets in the wild, but it’s up to studios to create software that pushes these devices to their full potential. There have been attempts at leveraging mobile devices in modern games, such as the Destiny 2 Companion App, Fallout Pip Boy tool, and Grand Theft Auto iFruit experience. These apps generally serve as hubs for tracking progress or expanding the game world, though they tend to be built for phones rather than tablets, and they appear as an afterthought of multimillion-dollar marketing budgets.
The divide between mobile and console gaming is shrinking as tablets and smartphones become powerful enough to support rich experiences, and developers attempt to tap into a market that’s billions of devices deep. In this environment, it feels like a good time to give second-screen game development another go. Nintendo alone demonstrated the allure of dual-screen gaming with the Wii U, though it unraveled that progress with the Switch, which technically uses two displays but doesn’t offer second-screen play. And now Nintendo is all about the Switch Lite, a cheaper console that doesn’t connect to a TV at all. After the failure of the Wii U, the studio has apparently ditched the idea of a built-in second screen altogether.
Luckily for Nintendo — and literally every other video game company — players nowadays come with their own screens.
