If you own a Wii U, you have probably heard of Wii U Chat. It's the Wii U's video chat function which lets you use the GamePad's camera to talk to other gamers from anywhere in the world. On March 4th, Vidyo, the company that powers Wii U chat, has announced that they have future plans to let gamers video chat with other gamers on their mobile devices. This would mean that both Miiverse and Wii U chat could very well be released on mobile devices at the same time later this year.
Wii U Chat is an extremely overlooked feature for Nintendo's 8th generation offering. The camera quality isn't the best, but it isn't awful in any way possible. When you enter a chat with one of your gaming buddies, you can use the provided stylus to actually draw whatever you'd like on their camera feed. You can make your friend have a mustache, hat or anything you can imagine. The only real downside about Wii U Chat is that the application takes a few moments to load which Nintendo will fix in the future. In a sense, it's basically Skype for Nintendo.
Bringing this service to mobile devices will help gamers keep in touch with their friends more than usual. Gamers can't always sit at their Wii U consoles waiting for their friend to chat with them. Even though the GamePad seems portable, you can only use it around 30 feet away from the system itself. When the service finally comes to mobile devices, there will no longer be any barriers. There is also a high possibility that Nintendo could re-brand 'Wii U Chat' to be called 'Miiverse Chat' so both mobile apps seem similar and cause less confusion. Nintendo will probably not re-brand any services, but it'd be nice to see some changes to the app design.
In the future, Vidyo could possibly add extra services to Wii U Chat such as Skype and Google+ Hangouts. Since Skype is owned by Microsoft, it's unlikely that we'll see the service come to the Wii U, but it's always a possibility of Oovoo or Google+ Hangouts coming to the system in the foreseeable future. Nothing has been confirmed by Nintendo yet, but since Vidyo is in charge of the service, and based off of their announcement, gamers should get ready for many Wii U features to hit mobile devices within the next few years.
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