The Wii U: Another Revolution that Will Force Everyone Else to do it Better

Behold the Future!

So, wow.  The Nintendo Wii U, the console which is due to launch in 2012, looks phenomenal.  There are so many cool things about this new console, I don’t really know where to start.  That doesn’t mean it’s perfect, and that doesn’t mean I will rush to buy it, but it does mean that we are about to see some incredible gaming experiences being produced and I cannot wait to see where the revolution takes us.  Yes, this does mean that I will be talking about something current in the world of gaming news!  A revolution all of it's own...

Words cannot describe how much I want to play this game

Let’s start with the main selling point: the new controller.  The Executive Vice-President of THQ, Danny Bilson calls it, “the Swiss army knife of controllers,” and it’s hard to disagree.  While the Wii U will still use traditional Wii remotes, there is a new special controller which has latched on to the tablet craze.  It has a hi-def (I believe) screen in the middle, and controls along the side.  It also has a stylus, essentially making it a bigger, better DS hooked directly into your console.  On top of that it is motion sensitive as you’d expect.  The screen serves as a second window into the game, and if you move it to the left, you can see things to your left without making the central TV screen have to shift.  This looks to be especially useful if you are in a group game and you each want to look in different directions.  It also means that a player with the tablet can have private information from the rest of the players, making “asymmetrical gameplay” a massively interesting new feature of the Wii U.  Screen watching will no longer be a problem.  Basically, there is very little that this controller does not do.  The number of potential gameplay uses are staggering.

In addition to the fancy tablet controller, Nintendo has finally brought its graphics up to the modern age, hence titles like Batman: Arkham City, Assassin’s Creed, etc. will be released on this console once it comes out.  It will also have internet and streaming capabilities, which is what we expect by now.

These graphics on a Nintendo console?  You must be mad, sir!

I think that this entire system looks amazing.  There are definitely some drawbacks though.  The tablet looks a little bit too easy to throw across the room.  There’s a reason they put the strap on the Wii controllers before, so perhaps the same thing can be done here.  I can see that the set up is quite complicated now, with different people using different controllers, but I don’t think that’s a particular issue.  The one problem I do see coming is a repeat of the tragedy of the original Wii.  The Wii U is going to revolutionize everything.  Like before when they were the first to add motion sensitivity, Nintendo are the first to jump on board using the tablet in gaming.  However, what happened before was that the other consoles simply waited a year or two and then brought out the same additions, only better implemented, stealing away crowds of gamers from Nintendo.  I really hope that this system’s features will be enough to bring gamers of all kinds streaming back to Nintendo, as they have always had a warm place in my heart.  I also hope that the next systems of Sony and Microsoft don’t make the entire console immediately obsolete though.  I think the increase in graphics will be a major contributor to keeping Nintendo competitive in areas other than party games.

We shall have to wait and see.