E3 2011: The next Wii is the Wii U – Controller with touch screen and more
Its here, its crazy and it made us go what the Thats Nintendo for you
The Wii’s successor is here and it’s a little bit of what you thought it would be and everything that you didn’t. The focus here is on the new controller that as rumours suggested has a 6.2" touch screen built into the thing. It’s also got a camera, dual slide pads, triggers, shoulder buttons and a camera and even a gyroscope built in. Nintendo’s idea is to blur the lines between the system and the controller. You’ll be able to play games on the screen without watching them on the TV, as well as using the controller for multiplayer games and using it for Wii Fit without even using the TV at all as well.
Nintendo was very very light on details about the actual console during the event, at some points it looked like there wasn’t even a new console at all. However there is and it appears to be much more capable than the Wii, running games in 1080p via HDMI and with some great graphics. The system will have flash based storage internally and will be upgradable via USB and SD cards. The games will ship on iDensity discs, however there isn’t any sizings available as of yet.
The console is backwards compatible and in some instance the new games even work with Wii Remotes in tandem with the Wii U controller. The Wii U controller’s screen will allow you to get a different perspective on some games that vanilla Wii Remote players won’t get.
Nintendo didn’t show off any of their own games during the conference instead showed off 8 ’prototypes’ that will give you an idea of how the system and the games play with the controller. However there was a huge line up of 3rd party games shown and some franchises that you haven’t seen ever on a Nintendo console including Assassin’s Creed, Batman Arkham City, Ghost Recon Online and more.
If all this sounds pretty crazy, don’t worry – it is – Nintendo will release trailers shortly for the system and you’ll be able to get a better look at it. It’s another hard console to explain.
