Wii U Edition



Minecraft: Wii U Edition was the edition of Minecraft developed by 4J Studios and Mojang Studios for the Wii U. It was announced on December 7, 2015, and released on December 17, 2015 for US$29.99 on the Nintendo eShop. A retail disc version was released on June 17, 2016. This edition was bundled with seven add-on packs, and sixteen additional packs were also available as downloadable content. Exclusive content based on Nintendo properties was also available for the game: a mash-up based on the Super Mario franchise was released in May 2016.

As of Patch 43, the Wii U Edition has not received new feature updates, such as Village & Pillage, Buzzy Bees, the Nether Update, Caves & Cliffs, and so on.

The Wii U Edition's most recent feature update is the Update Aquatic.

Development
In late 2013, Mojang Studios founder Markus Persson announced that there were no plans to port Minecraft to the Wii U, stating that he wasn't aware of any plans but agreed that "a Wii U version would make sense."

In June 2014, Shigeru Miyamoto and Shinya Takahashi were asked about porting Minecraft to the Wii U. Miyamoto stated:

Takahashi followed with his statement:

In September 2014, Mojang Studios' Daniel Kaplan reiterated that there were no plans to bring Minecraft to the Wii U because he claimed that the user base for the Wii U was "very small". This was not the case at the time of this post, as the Wii U was ahead of the Xbox One in terms of sales around the same time.

At MINECON 2015, Mojang's COO Vu Bui was also asked about porting Minecraft to the Wii U. Bui stated:

On November 11, 2015, PEGI accidentally leaked a rating for Minecraft: Wii U Edition. The leaked rating was removed six days later.

On December 7, 2015, the game was officially confirmed, and Mojang and Nintendo announced that Minecraft: Wii U Edition would be released on December 17th, 2015.

On May 9, 2016, Nintendo and Mojang Studios announced that there would be a special Super Mario-themed mash-up pack released for Minecraft: Wii U Edition on the May 19 for free. Mojang also announced that a retail version of the game would be released on June 17, 2016.

Gameplay
Wii U Edition featured Off-TV Play, which allowed the game to be played exclusively on the Wii U GamePad's screen. There was some limited touchscreen functionality, allowing players to select items on their hotbar, navigate through the Crafting menu, and more. When asked about whether the Wii U GamePad could be used as a second screen for full inventory management, Owen Jones stated it was not at the moment, but it would be cool. The Wii U GamePad was never usable as a second screen. Mii characters were used as the player's in-game username. In addition to the Wii U GamePad, the game was also playable with the Wii U Pro Controller, the Wii Classic Controller, or the Wii Classic Controller Pro.

DLC
The Wii U Edition came with six of the "most popular add-on packs" included. This is the reason that Wii U Edition was more expensive than all of the other editions of Legacy Console Edition.

The following DLC was included in Wii U Edition:


 * Skin Packs:
 * Battle & Beasts Skin Pack
 * Battle & Beasts 2 Skin Pack
 * Texture Packs:
 * Natural Texture Pack
 * City Texture Pack
 * Fantasy Texture Pack
 * Mash-up packs:
 * Festive Mash-up
 * Super Mario Mash-up

Trivia

 * Wii U Edition (alongside Nintendo Switch Edition and New Nintendo 3DS Edition) was the most expensive editions of Minecraft to date, at US$29.99.
 * This was due to the game releasing with 6 add-on packs included.
 * All DLC included with Wii U Edition were the same as the Xbox One Edition Holiday Pack, with the exception of the Halo Mash-up pack, which was released as additional paid DLC for the Wii U edition, having been previously exclusive to Xbox platforms.
 * This is ahead of by just US$3.04.
 * The PlayStation 3 Edition was released exactly two years earlier, on December 17, 2013.
 * The Nintendo eShop did not have a free demo for Minecraft, unlike the PlayStation and Xbox.
 * Wii U Edition did not have the exclusive features of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 editions, also limiting blocks and world spaces and as well as lower render distance just like the Nintendo Switch Edition.