Nintendo pulled out a considerable surprise during their live-streamed Nintendo Direct conference, which they conveniently aired before the start of E3 in Los Angeles on Tuesday: a new controller for their upcoming home console. Called the Wii U Pro Controller, it reverts back to a more “traditional” controller along the lines of those used by the Wii’s predecessor, Nintendo GameCube, and more recently the Wii’s competitors, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Fans and detractors alike have been voicing their opinions about the announcement online, but one of the most highly circulated tid-bits goes like this: “Nintendo are going to scare off third-party developers by introducing yet another control method, because it’s going to complicate the development process”. It’s certainly a compelling argument, but it’s worth pointing out that supporting the Pro Controller won’t be as hard as it looks.

First off, I’d like to explain my opposition’s argument: since the Pro Controller won’t ship with the Wii U console, developers will be discouraged from directly targeting it, and they’ll have to work in support for the touch screen-equipped GamePad as well, which is more work. That means games will have to work as well with one screen as they do with two… which will be a familiar-sounding requirement to those who paid attention to Nintendo’s press conference at last year’s E3.

That is, the function whereby players can turn off their TV and continue to play their game on the touch screen-equipped GamePad. Nintendo touted this as a major feature, even though it poses some problems. The great thing for developers, though, is that a game which facilitates this function will easily facilitate the use of the Pro Controller. It’s the same idea, but in reverse; instead of switching off the TV screen and using only the GamePad, you’re switching off the GamePad and using only the TV.

That’s because whatever optimisations have been made to fit all the important display elements onto the GamePad display when playing exclusively on the GamePad can be replicated on the main TV screen when playing with the Pro Controller. They’re ultimately the same controller: since the button arrangements on the GamePad and Pro Controller are identical, the only difference is that you’ll see on the TV what you’d otherwise see on the GamePad when using the single-screen mode.

The moral here is to look a little harder at design decisions before criticising them. It’s true: Nintendo seems to enjoy releasing accessories more than the average hardware manufacturer – but in the days where PlayStation Move and Kinect are not a faux pas, I think an easily-implemented “traditional” controller isn’t too outrageous an optional purchase. Plus, it’ll seduce plenty of cross-platform developers who won’t need to over-think Wii U releases.