Be Excellent To Each Other

GUFF:

• Launches: 2012
• Size: Approximately 1.8 inches tall, 6.8 inches wide and 10.5 inches long.
• New Controller: The new controller incorporates a 6.2-inch, 16:9 touch screen and traditional button controls, including two analog Circle Pads. This combination removes the traditional barriers between games, players and the TV by creating a second window into the video game world. The rechargeable controller includes a Power button, Home button, +Control Pad, A/B/X/Y buttons, L/R buttons and ZL/ZR buttons. It includes a built-in accelerometer and gyroscope, rumble feature, camera, a microphone, stereo speakers, a sensor strip and a stylus.

• Other Controls: Up to four Wii Remote™ (or Wii Remote Plus) controllers can be connected at once. The new console supports all Wii™ controllers and input devices, including the Nunchuk™ controller, Classic Controller™, Classic Controller Pro™ and Wii Balance Board™.
• Media: A single self-loading media bay will play 12-centimeter proprietary high-density optical discs for the new console, as well as 12-centimeter Wii optical discs.
• Video Output: Supports 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 480p and 480i. Compatible cables include HDMI, component, S-video and composite.
• Audio Output: Uses AV Multi Out connector. Six-channel PCM linear output through HDMI.
• Storage: The console will have internal flash memory, as well as the option to expand its memory using either an SD memory card or an external USB hard disk drive.
• CPU: IBM Power®-based multi-core microprocessor.
• Other: Four USB 2.0 connector slots are included. The new console is backward compatible with Wii games and Wii accessories.

• Games announced: Smash Brothers, Battlefield 3, Batman: Arkham City, Assassin's Creed, Ghost Recon Online, Darksiders II, Dirt, Aliens: Colonial Marines, Metro: Last Light, Tekken, Ninja Gaiden 3, FIFA 12, Madden 12, Driver, Lego City Stories

Other facts:

• The price point of the system will be competitive to the current prices of the PS3, 360 in terms of value.
• The games shown for Wii U at the show were actually PS3 and 360 versions but the Wii U will look the same or better.
• No BluRay Support.
• Controller's screen is single-touch.
• Backwards compatible with the Wii's Games, but no upscaling is done.
• Nintendo Online system to be announced by the end of the week.

Pictures:

• Console + controller: http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/file ... wii-e3.png
• Console: http://i.imgur.com/eaN3V.jpg
• Controller: http://i.imgur.com/2Ski1.jpg http://i.imgur.com/sf7fp.jpg

Video:

• E3 Tech Demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF4rInTqOLI (Stream quality)
• Controller trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e3qaPg_keg

And finally, my initial kneejerk thoughts from the E3 thread for good measure:

I've thought some more. It's bollocks really, isn't it? It's as gimmicky as gimmicky gets. As above, it'll be mainly used to pointlessly (although admittedly rather coolly for a bit) display HUD stuff, or it'll occasionally be used for something cool like the golf ball bit in the demo video. So the gimmick wears off after a couple of weeks and you're left with an A4-sized hunk of plastic with your health and ammo on it that probably needs recharging after every single use and likely costs up to or over £100 - assuming you'd want to or even can buy a second one. I reckon you'll be using the inevitable "classic" controller for most of your gaming within six months because your arms are tired and you can't be arsed to charge the Wii U one up, at which point it's just a little white Xbox without all of the Xbox Live gubbins and a few re-hashed (for fuck's sake Nintendo, make up some new IP) first party titles.

I like the possibility of interacting with your big screen thanks to the new controller acting as a sort of graphics tablet. The ability to draw and stuff like that - it would be seriously cool for stuff like Forza - imagine the car designs people could come up with if they had a bloody freehand pen at their disposal, or the PES football kit editor. Imagine the massive purple bellends you could draw in great detail! But again, this is a very specific thing and not necessarily something I'd spend a great deal of time with beyond a bit of customisation. It's nice to have that option, though, and maybe some interesting games could appear using that particular control method.

If I can seriously continue playing whatever I was playing on the big screen as I walk up the stairs and get into bed, I'll be seriously fucking impressed. For a bit at least. Otherwise, we're going to see new consoles from Sony and MS within a year or two at the most which are going to address the issue that, frankly, the tech is creaking at this point compared to even a reasonably priced PC, and assuming the Wii U is based on a similar generation of tech as the 360 and PS3, it's going to be made to look pretty dated graphically within a fairly short space of time. Of course, it's not all about graphics. In fact, fuck that. If Nintendo can rely on gimmicks I can complain about graphics.

But yeah, I'll probably buy one innit.

Note: I stole all of that info from reddit - I just reformatted it for here. Grammatical errors and complaints should be directed towards Zardoz because he deserves it.

May as well repost my bit from the E3 thread.

I think the controllers got potential for local multi-player game after seeing the chase me tech demo but I'm not sure how many different game types you can make from it. It would be good if the person using the new controller could orchestrate a game somehow.
Such as say the other 4 players are using the wii remotes as a fps like rainbow six, the person with the new controller could play the game as a strategy and deploy the enemies at certain points and give them movement directions and orders.

Also the virtual space thing shown by that shield game could be fleshed out as a whole game idea. Imagine a game like fatal frame where your aiming the camera and you have to search areas off the television screen to find ghosts and shit.

It's very similar to the Wiii for potential, but as with the Wii will it work as good as we hope?, will it produce the original games/ideas we'd imagined? and will it be relevant and popular for core gamers after a year?

Also has FIFA 12 really been confirmed? Good whittle down what time the console will be released next year when you consider that FIFA 13 will be out around the end of September 12.

Does it still play Gamecube games?

That's one of the things nobody has mentioned yet. I'd say probably not else they'd be bleating about it, wouldn't they? But you never know.

Any pictures of the back of the controller? As it stands, that looks uncomfortable to use.

I'm sure I heard him say on Game Trailers that it doesn't play them.

Also the last picture on this hands on shows the back of the controller.

http://www.vg247.com/2011/06/07/wiiu-first-ever-close-up-hardware-images-and-impressions/

Oh dear, it's about as slab like as I'd feared.

It really does look terrible from a prolonged session point of view, but it'd be the first Nintendo controller since the NES that didn't fit snugly into the hand, so I'll wait to get my hands on it. Having said that, I wonder if it's even a viable option for anything more than a couple of hours on Zelda anyway - surely the battery is gonna take a pounding? As above, it seems like another gimmick to me. I was genuinely excited about the Wii's gimmick and that soon wore thin. I'm thus far unconvinced about this one barring a few potentially cool uses, so that must give it about a month before I'm totally over it.

I didn't particulary like the snes either. I still remember first playing on the Playstation and being seriously impressed with the controllers general comfort. (Until they ruined it by sticking on two ill thought out thumbsticks and left the design alone for over a decade) It's the rounded grippy hand shaped bits that do it. Which this entirely lacks, alongside the controls looking too close to the edge of the controller and weight concerns.

I'm definitely concerned about the weight. I tend to get numb hands when playing on a portable console for longer than half an hour or so because of the angle I tend to hold them to see the screen. This'll be even worse I imagine.

Nah.

DO WANT.

You realise this means battlefield 3 on the loo?

I think it is brilliant, and they will sell millions of them.

Edit: All the hands on I have seen have said that it is very light.

First impressions...
The controller looks like it'll be hell to use for an extended period of time.
Can we have some new and interesting first-party games this time around, Nintendo?
Ooh, some interesting third-party support, but how long will it last? Personally I can't really see third parties doing any better on this (with "hardcore" games, natch) than most did on any of the last three Nintendo home consoles.
I kind of like the look of the actual console itself.

In short, they're going to have to do a lot to sell this 'un to me.

I just really don't know.

If... it is affordable alongside the next XBox, which will be my next purchase
If... it has a good range of third party support for a change, and I'm talking year 1 third party support. That sells.
If... they <ahem> revolutionise their online system and give me something adult and comparable to XBox Live
If... the fuckton of stuff I bought from the Wii shop when I knew no better can ALL be redownloaded and played (none of this OMFG 480p noes! for NES games)

Then I'll be interested.

I'm not paying £250 not to have to say "fuck off upstairs and watch it if it's so important" to the missus though.

How the hell did they manage to trademark "Classic Controller"?

I am uncertain, I don't think it is aimed at me, the concept of not having to switch off the tv is irrelevant, I have a dedicated tv for my xbox.

Regarding battery and weight concerns, it is just a controller with a screen. It's not like an iPad or even a DS, which has all the processor bobbins in it and are still light with long lasting batteries, it's just a screen - entirely useless without the base console to drive it. So I can imagine the battery life and weight are not going to be issues. I bet it'll be bloody expensive to replace, mind you.

Hmmm. I am partially interested. Like many, I thought the Wii was absolutely amazing... for about a week. I need to be convinced about this.

There's some fascinating potential here, I think. The Engadget hands-on sounds good -- the reviewer was playing a game where two people using normal Wii controllers were hunting him on the TV, while he used the newfangled controller and had extra information like a radar on his touchscreen. Will third party devs really run with it and do some currently-unimaginable things? The Wii's track record isn't inspiring (although I'm more positive about it than many Beexers, I see things like Madworld, No More Heroes and House of the Dead as being proof that the Wii hardware produced excellent non-Nintendo games from time to time). RPGs could make excellent use of the screen for inventory space; Madden could use it for the playbook (particularly great for two-player gaming). And I was always sad I never got to play Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (the four-GBA-and-Gamecube one) because that sounded really interesting.

A big "boo" for the touchscreen being single-touch only and requiring a stylus though. I share Mr Dave's caution about how comfortable it can be to hold, although I suspect that's the kind of thing that might change between now and the console's release (and the Engadget reviewer specifically notes that the lightness helps).

Go and look at the iFixit teardown of the iPad. The mainboard is tiny -- most of the size and weight comes from the battery, and quite a bit of the power drain comes from the screen. The WiiU's screen is far smaller though, not as bright, and has a lower-power digitiser layer. Presumably this is part of the power saving.

My experience is that using wireless is something of a battery drainer, and receiving a screens worth of information is perhaps a bit of an issue, framerate, resolution and compression permitting. I

The thing is - it's presumably "streaming" the video from the console though, so even if it isn't doing any processing, whatever wireless tech they're using to supply the video feed is going to drain the battery like nobody's business.

Is the battery user replaceable as well? I don't want to be posting my controller to Nintendo every year to replace the battery.

There does appear to be a battery hatch, but that may or may not survive to be in the final product. An unliky to be cheap either.

I don't even understand how they are going to stream real time generated images over wireless without lag/horrible compression etc.

It also means you won't actually be able to go too far away from the main console in order to play just on the controller.

I really hope someone makes good games for this, because at the moment I love its potential.

That screen will be low res - low enough that a cheap chip will be able to encode 4 30fps streams to MPEG4 or something in real time.

Well - it will have horrible compression. But it's a six inch screen, so you're not exactly going to notice.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011- ... lue-reggie



Lots of weasel words, but if it's genuinely price-competitive with the (now cheap) 360 and (somewhat less cheap) PS3, that'll be interesting.

I read that as "it's going to be at least as expensive as a PS3, probably more".

I expect it'll be ~£250, given that the 3DS was significantly pricier than the DS on launch.

The "real time" bit is actually the problem. Remember you've got to encode *and* decode.
My guess is it actually won't be mathematically compressed at all (or maybe just on a line by line basis), and they'll rely on large bandwidth low power video transmission like zigbee or whatever instead.

Battery run time / weight is not such a problem, I feel.

As suspected, you can only use one Wii U controller with the console and it won't be sold separately:

http://www.vg247.com/2011/06/08/wii-u-c ... -nintendo/

Doesn't support the original Wiimote either -- it requires the MotionPlus thing, either the add-on dongle or the built-in new Wiimote.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011- ... al-wiimote

Presumably won't be backwards compatible with the GC, as I cannot seem them sticking four controller ports on it for that purpose.

They're being very cagey about its obvious limitations.



I mean, I'm realistic. I know that mass-consumer tech at an affordable price isn't going to be magical. Concessions have to be made, but they're deliberately wording their answers non-specifically allowing people to go ahead and imagine all kinds of wondrous things, when in fact, like the Wiimote before it, the reality is going to be not quite as awesome.

Still, I'm not writing it off - looking forward to having a bash - but also fully prepared for it to be gimmicky shite.

I think someone said on the last page that someone might've said that it might not support GC games. Maybe.

It does not support Gaemcube games.

The Wii came out at £180. I imagine they will price this in a similar range (probably a bit more).

I don't like the idea at all, and I still haven't bothered to plug my Wii in since moving last August. Nintendo are lying basts, and they'll be lying about what this can do, too.

I'll still buy one.

Iwata has apparently hinted at a $250 price point, so that's around £250 for us.

Definitely can't see this being under £200. The 3DS was £229 wasn't it? Runcle is probably more on the money - plus, they said it'll be "over $250" I think.

They got the Wii so cheap because it was essentially a Gamecube in a new box with some new controllers. This is a totally new box along with a ridiculously tech-heavy controller.

Or me, seeing as I said it on page 1.

Did anyone else just hear something?

This sums me up perfectly. I loved the Wii for a couple of weeks but haven't touched it in ages, despite buying new games for it.

I want a WiiU because it looks nice.

http://kotaku.com/5809840/nintendo-talks-wii-u-pricing



I hadn't thought about them keeping the Wii around, but with so much game and accessory compatibility it makes perfect sense of course.

Oops. Looks like the footage they used in WiiU trailers was of 360, PS3, and PC games. Naughty.

http://ca.gizmodo.com/5809844/nintendo- ... -demo-reel

WTF did they do that?

Presumably because it doesn't actually work yet.

Like the last one, this console will leave people teetering on that precipice that would see them falling from a cloud of cognitive dissonance into a shallow puddle of cold, stagnant reality.

So Nintendo, purveyors of infuriating games like Mario Bros, have invented the ultimate money machine - a console where you have to buy a new console each time you trash a joypad because you were one pixel off in a fifty bounce walljump for the hundred and fiftieth time this evening, or some AI cunt rubberbands past you to cost you a gold cup in Mario Kart. It's going to be a shitload more breakable than a 360 controller, and almost infinitely more smashable than a kinect.

I'd best not get one, really.

You sound like an angry man. It will end up costly, indeed