Wii U

[Flip]

Holy cow, Nintendo's announced Wii U uses a PSV as its controller... coming April 2012.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... lenews_wsj

[Eric]

Did they mention the price anywhere? Or their online plans? >.>

[Flip]

Nothing about any of that yet. In fact, thy only unveiled the controller and did not even show the system, which is supposed to be beefed up. They played a few games which supposedly looked Hi-Def and very pretty. I guess the world is ready for the Dreamcast again?

[Zeus]

This is WAAAAAY different than the DC. We're talking about a touchscreen that's only 0.8in smaller than the freakin' Playbook. That's nothing to scoff at. It's clearly meant to be used with your fingers. And did I mention it's HUGE?

Like everyone else, I'm interested to see what the cost of this is. If we're talking a system that's "significantly more powerful" than the PS3, it's gotta be at least $300, probably closer to $400. That's new territory for Nintendo as the Wii was the first system they ever sold that debuted at more than $200. Is their market even going to be interested at that price? They're pricing themselves into the PS3/360 market and as Don and Sine have proven repeatedly, the Sony and Microsoft bitches are numerous and love their soapboxes. And what's the price of that controller going to be? If they can miraculously keep it in the $60 range, it would be amazing. To compare, right now, a PS3 controller runs $55 and 360 controller runs $50. Then again, we are talking likely at least a year away, maybe the price of the screens will come down that much? It would almost have to in order to make the system viable. Can't be spending $400+ on 4 controllers, market won't bear that. And what will Apple and RIM say when you can get a screen of that size for substantially less than $100 while their systems are still selling for $400+?

It COULD lead to some some new gaming, but that would depend on a lot of things. First, they're going the HD route with the new system, so that means even mid-range games are going to have at least a $10M budget. How many companies are going to try something new with that kind of commitment? Not too many, that's for sure. At least 90% of the games will just be new controls for stuff we know and look how poorly that did on the Wii. Nintendo will have their batch of "innovation" but they need Ubisoft, EA, and Activision to jump on board to force the Sines and Dons of this world to shut up and just play regardless of their own biases. Otherwise, it's just another polarizing Nintendo system and at that kind of price, the market shrinks significantly.

Their success is going to almost be based on their online setup, at least early on. They need the Call of Duty bitches to wanna play their system and online is vital. Madden's an easy sell on that controller but how do you improve an FPS without it being all lame? Whether we like them or not, FPSs are vital to the success of any console, at least in North America and parts of Europe, they have to appeal that that crowd. And they ain't good at doin' that.

Big risk for Nintendo. They miraculously found success with the Wii but those tricks ain't gonna work with the direction they're going in. They need to go against their own history and tendencies to make this one work. With Iwata instead of Yamauchi, there's a possibility. But I'm still very skeptical.

[Eric]

Well, to be honest, I subscribe to "It's Nintendo, they can do what they want no matter how much sense it doesn't make and turn a profit."

[Flip]

FPS's need to have a watermark map on the actual screen, so the little controller screen having the map wouldnt work well at all. I do see easy weapon switching coming from touching the controller, which is pretty neat.

[Julius Seeker]

The controller itself features gyroscopic motion technology, so similar to some iOS and 3DS games, it can be used to aim fairly effectively and precisely. It also has the typical rumble functionality, dual sticks, 4 face, 4 shoulder, a D-Pad, and speakers. I wonder about headphone jacks?

Also on the controller is the very obvious 6.2 inch screen. It streams directly from the console (which I will note looks like a fat Wii with rounded edges).

What powers the console? So far all that is known is That it is an IBM POWER 7 chipset with lots of embedded DRAM. Also some internal space (8 gigs according to Kotaku) with the option to expand via SD cards and USB hardrives (4 USB ports are on the console).

So far some titles have been shown or discussed on the Nintendo Channel including Assassin's Creed, Tekken, Ninja Gaiden 3, EA Sports titles, Bioshock. Some of the developers were discussing some interesting ideas, to Paraphrase: Imagine a Starwars game where one player commands the piloting of the ship, and another directs the rest of the crew or conducts a boarding mission? Or a war game where one player directs armies and another acts as an elite assassin/warrior?

The most discussed feature, simply playing a game on TV, and then turning off the TV and heading to the bedroom to relax and continue playing. Essentially it's a cross between a handheld and a console, but not a handheld like DS or PSP that you can put in your pocket and leave home to play anywhere, but an around the house handheld..... Powered by something in the arena of a quad-core 3.36GHz IBM Power 7 processor on a 6.2 inch HD screen.

[Zeus]

FPS's need to have a watermark map on the actual screen, so the little controller screen having the map wouldnt work well at all. I do see easy weapon switching coming from touching the controller, which is pretty neat.

And both Activision and EA are gonna have to step up and do it otherwise it doesn't matter

[M'k'n'zy]

During the press confrence, I think 3 or 4 of the games they mentioned that third parties were working on were first person shooters. When Activision stated that they were supporting the new console, Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg told GameSpot earlier today. "We will be supporting the Wii U. You bet against Nintendo at your peril."

[Citizen Zach]

The gameplay trailers that Nintendo was showing, was 360 and ps3 footage. That's kind of a big deal.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/08/nint ... -with-ps3/

[Imakeholesinu]

Ha, only one hand held per console. Hand held not to be sold separately. All other players have to use wiimotes.

[Zeus]

During the press confrence, I think 3 or 4 of the games they mentioned that third parties were working on were first person shooters. When Activision stated that they were supporting the new console, Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg told GameSpot earlier today. "We will be supporting the Wii U. You bet against Nintendo at your peril."

So far we only have ports from what I hear, though. I wanna see them actually use that controller for something good

[Zeus]

Anyone else laughing at Nintendo's whole "you only need 1 of these per system, even for multiplayer games; the rest of the people will use WiiMotes" BS they're spreading? Man, this is either the controller or it's not, you don't fragment your core model of in-room, multiplayer gaming by saying "only one of you is special enough for the REAL controller". It's just stupid.

This WiiU is actually annoying me the more I hear about it. They actually need to give me a reason to care 'cause right now, I don't like where they're going with it. If this is what I wanted, I'd just wait a year for Sony's "me too" version on the PS3 (like the Move). Why would I wanna spend all that coin on a single-player system with what I promise you will be an inferior online system? Their games may convince me by the time it comes out but I'm not impressed with the initial announcement.

[Eric]

Look, it's a Nintendo system. Nintendo will do weird shit, and it'll have the Nintendo games you care about, you'll buy it, you'll enjoy it, and you'll shut up! You CANNOT predict Nintendo.

3rd party support will probably be ports for the first year, and a year after that it'll get the big releases at the same time as on 360/PS3. At year after that though Microsoft/Sony should announce their successor consoles(Their words, 2 years before announce, 2 more years before PS3/360 die, 4 years total for 10 year life span).

I think the best thing the PS3 did for the next at least 2 generations is show them not to put out stupidly priced systems($500+) and expect people to buy them.

My question to the world is will the PS4 & X-Box whatever be backwards compatible? Will we get those PS2 classics eventually like we got PS1, and would such a feature hike up the price of the system.

The reason I ask this is because moving forward, I don't think its really possible for games that are really old to exist outside of "the cloud" in the future. There are a crap ton of PS2 classics out there that would probably sell like hot cakes on the PS Store, and eventually the PS3 games we're playing now will be impossible to find. It just occurs to me going forward that our game systems will have to be backwards compatible to some degree or we'll be losing out on alot of old classics.

It's not like the PC where you can find just about anything since MS Dos, console games are alot harder to dig up, and deteriorating conditions are a concern as well.

[kali o.]

I am so glad I don't like Nintendo games -- saves me from being sucked into the wackiness.

[Kupek]

Update: Sure enough, Nintendo has told us it has "not made any announcements about the SKU." In other words, whether or not the rep at E3 meant to say it, Nintendo is not officially stating that the Wii U's controller will only be available with the console itself. That's no guarantee that it will end up being sold separately. For now, though, there's no reason to panic.

http://www.1up.com/news/wii-u-tablet-co ... separately

[Lox]

Hey, Nintendo, what happens if I drop my controller and it breaks? Do I have to buy another console bundle to get a new one?

[Zeus]

Update: Sure enough, Nintendo has told us it has "not made any announcements about the SKU." In other words, whether or not the rep at E3 meant to say it, Nintendo is not officially stating that the Wii U's controller will only be available with the console itself. That's no guarantee that it will end up being sold separately. For now, though, there's no reason to panic.

http://www.1up.com/news/wii-u-tablet-co ... separately

They've backtracked big-time from Miyamoto's comments after EVERYONE said "WHAT THE FUCK!". Still, they're stubborn and it may happen