Star Trek Wii U

Early next year, Trekkers and non-Trekkers alike will get the chance to fill the virtual shoes of Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto in Digital Extremes' Star Trek. Originally slated to release this year, publishers Paramount Digital Entertainment and Namco Bandai chose to delay the game, noting at the time that it would ultimately appear on "all major home consoles and PC." Apparently, one "major home console" was initially overlooked.

Months before Star Trek is scheduled to release, Nintendo's Wii U will become available, but right now the game has only been officially announced for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC. That may change.

Set after the events of J.J. Abram's 2009 Star Trek reboot, the Digital Extremes developed game focuses on Kirk and Spock working to stop a legendary enemy from conquering the galaxy. Currently scheduled for a first quarter 2013 release, Star Trek seems like an obvious fit for Nintendo's Wii U -- the tablet controller would make a pretty good Tricorder, don't you think? So why hasn't the game been announced for Nintendo's upcoming console? According to Paramount Senior Vice President Brian Miller, speaking to NintendoWorldReport, a Wii U version of Star Trek may still be in the cards.

"We are exploring right now all of our options to get on the platforms that make sense. It's early. Good thing we have a lot of time to figure that out, and over the next few months we'll be able to announce a few more things."

Every studio porting a current-gen game to the Wii U faces the challenge of effectively using the system's tablet controller. Gearbox Software's Randy Pitchford is a big fan of the tech, and believes the Wii U version of Aliens: Colonial Marines will have "much more to offer" than other iterations. Likewise, the Assassin's Creed 3 team at Ubisoft has a solid handle on the Wii U controller's functionality, and is making the most of it. Still, there is a chance that the tablet controller is actually standing in the way of porting Star Trek to Wii U.

From the moment it was announced, Star Trek has been touted as a co-op focused experience. The problem? Wii U only supports a single tablet controller. Obviously, that won't be an issue for online play (particularly if the Nintendo Network turns out to be as robust as we've been led to believe), but what about single system co-op? At this point, we don't know if Star Trek's co-op is exclusively online or not (the recent gameplay trailer certainly didn't show any split screen), and if it isn't, that's going to be a problem on Wii U -- no one is going to want to play the game using a Wii Remote and Nunchuck while their partner gets all of the tablet controller benefits. Would you?

Ranters, are you looking forward to Star Trek? Would you like to play the game on Wii U? Let us know in the comments below.

Star Trek is set to release in early 2013 on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.

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Source: NintendoWorldReport