After lying dormant for nearly two years, the wireless payment feature of the Wii U is to be brought to life in Japan next week.
One of the most seemingly-useless Wii U features of all is final being brought to life…if only in a rather limited region. Nintendo has officially confirmed that after nearly two years of sitting there and doing pretty much notion at all, the Wii U’s NFC connectivity will from next week allow for purchases to be made by simply touching compatible credit/debit cards on the controller.
It’s basically the same kind of system already being used all over the place whereby mobile phones will NFC can be used to make payments in various stores and the like. In this instance though, the Wii U’s controller will serve more as the terminal and thus allow for online purchases to be made using a compatible payment card.
Interesting enough, but for the time being it’s looking like the NFC payments system will only be made available for Wii U owners in Japan. Nintendo’s press release didn’t mention anything about any other markets and it’s somewhat debatable as to how popular such a feature would be if introduced here in the US.
Still, it’s at least nice to see the NFC being turned on after all this time, even if it’s rather unlikely to transform the fortunes of the Wii U.