Streaming live from a room, rather than a conference hall, Satoru Iwata – president of Nintendo – has just explained a little bit more about their upcoming Wii U console in the pre-E3 Nintendo Direct presentation.
The controller, now officially dubbed the Wii U GamePad, has been slightly redesigned, with analogue sticks, better grip and therefore more comfort, along with a few new buttons to use. There’s a TV button, for example, which allows the GamePad to be used as a television remote, allowing for easy access and controls when you’re playing the console. Another feature is the NFC reader/writer, which allows you to place items, such as cards, to be scanned – it should work similarly to Skylanders, if executed right.
[drop]As we already knew, you’re able to use the GamePad as a portable screen to display the current game, instead of your TV, but you’re also able to use it to send and receive messages. The Wii U also supports all current Nintendo controllers, such as the previous Wii Remote, and a new Wii U Pro Controller – a pad not too unlike the Xbox controller, which removes the screen and is more suited to core games.Iwata also detailed the online features of the Wii U, now known as the Nintendo Network and – thankfully – it all looks good. In a rather rubbish video with some cheesy acting, Wii U’s sharing feature, an activity stream, was shown off. Similar to twitter, the stream allows you to post an update, which can then be accessed from mobile phones, PCs and even the 3DS (though none of these at launch, unfortunately). Responses can be made in a few ways, so if you or someone you know is stuck at a certain section in a game, a distress call can be made and someone can respond with a message or even a video call to help you out.
The Wii U’s home screen takes the online features one step further: the Miiverse, as it’s known, is a large screen filled with wandering Miis. These Miis are not only those on your console, but also your friends and even people playing similar games or those close to your location. You’re able to share updates, drawings or see groups of people playing the same game in real-time; it’s certainly more advanced than any online functionality Nintendo have dabbled with before.
Other features, including displaying the built-in internet browser on the Wii U GamePad and hiding it, amusingly and in true Nintendo fashion, with a curtain on the TV so you can reveal your surprise were shown. There appears to be a lot of great, innovative features with both the Wii U and the GamePad; it doesn’t seem like much of a gimmick and as though it could actually be something great. There looks to be a black Wii U, too, from one of the videos that was shown with a black GamePad.
Nintendo are describing the Wii U as both an evolution of the Wii and something completely different. Whilst we didn’t see any new games beyond those teased at last year’s E3, it certainly looks that way, and I’m rather excited to see the software line-up on Tuesday.
KeRaSh
Sounds good. I like they new GamePad Pro. It shows that they are indeed thinking about their core fans. Show me a strong launch line up and I’ll buy one of these things.
hazelam
i think Kris may have been right about the possibility of a skylanders style pokemon game with little figures you can buy and import into your game.
i like the look of the pro controller.
it’s like a 360 pad, but symmetrical, the lopsided design of the xbox pads is one of it bigger flaws, though that dpad is definitely the biggest.
and it made me smile a bit when they mentioned the analog sticks can now be pressed down to give you another control option, remembering playstation pads have been doing that for a decade.
still, it does mean any mutliplatform games can have a unified control scheme across all three platforms now, assuming ms or sony don’t change their controllers too much next gen.
anyway, the machine does seem to have a nice set of features, but the real deal breaker/maker will be the games, i guess i’ll have to wait till the nintendo conference to find out about those.