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Looking Everywhere With Wii U Panorama View
Wii U Panorama View is a tech demo, or maybe it’s a game without goals? Or maybe it’s something that will never exist outside of the 2012 E3 show floor.
Nintendo doesn’t seem to have any concrete plans for Panorama View just yet. It may be something included with the Wii U console to show new adopters what the system can do, or it may be a downloadable product.
The demo on Nintendo’s show floor gave players the option to check out 360 degree viewing tours of a parade in Rio, a hangliding trip, a double-decker bus tour in London, or trip through an orchard of trees full of cherry blossoms. It was all real life footage shot with special cameras, and you can use the Wii U tablet to view everything that is going on in full 360 degrees. As you ride the tour bus in London, for example, you can rotate the tablet to look behind you, above you, below you, and everywhere in between.
There were options like the ability to see what previous Panorama View players looked at during, or in the case of the London tour, switch it to nighttime. You could also pull up a map to see exactly where the thing you are looking at occurred.
At the end of the tour, Panorama View would let you know what three items you looked at the most with a numbered list.
It was impressive technology, and it worked flawlessly with no noticeable lag, but it wasn’t a game. I’m not sure if this is something that will be seen at a consumer level, but it was a good way to show off an interesting feature of the Wii U.
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