Wii U video chat requires game closure

Accepting a video call via your Wii U will require you to quit your game in progress, Nintendo has confirmed.

Owners will be able to make video calls between Wii U's using the GamePad's front-facing camera, but calls cannot be made with a game running in the background.
"First, when the other person is online with Wii U, and you call them, their Home Button will flash to let them know a call is coming in," explained Nintendo's Fumihiko Tamiya in a recent Iwata Asks interview. "If they open the Menu, they'll get a message telling them they have an in-coming call, and if they answer it, the Wii U Chat session begins."

But, he adds, "they will have to end the game" to accept the call.

This is something Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata hopes can be improved at a later date. "There must be technical hurdles involved, but I hope this is an area that we can improve on in the future," he said.

Tamiya explains what happens if a call is made to a Wii U that's switched off. "They wouldn't be able to tell from the Wii U, but you can leave a message that appears in the messages list on Wii U Chat, and also through a message on Miiverse."

What a load of old faeces! Who's gonna want to quit out of a game to accept a call when you're fully immersed and flying! You'll just decline or ignore it till you're ready. Video calling is a good feature though. If both parties are ready for the call it's great! It'll be useless to me though as most people I know are so anti- Nintendo, you'd think they were responsible for mass genocide or something...

That is a bit rubbish. I like the idea of video calling, but with that kind of situation I'd have to send a text to my friends...."Hey I'm gonna ring you now...." "why don't you say what you need to in the text?" "oh yeah, I just thought, since I'm in the middle of a game...." "Doesn't matter, you have to cancel your game to take the call anyway..." "oh....this has been incredibly pointless..." "yes it has."

That's a shame, hope they do give it an update to allow it to work without ending the game. Mind you, the 3DS has to close one application before opening another, so it looks like it'll work in a similar way on the WiiU (at least to begin with).