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Hardware 2.0

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Nintendo unveils the Wii U

By | June 7, 2011, 10:26am PDT

Nintendo has unveiled its newest games console and the successor to the Wii - The Wii U.

Nintendo unveiled the machine at a press conference at the Electronic Entertainment Expo taking place in Los Angeles.

So, what do we have here? Well, there’s a console and a handheld controller featuring a 6.2-inch touchscreen. The handheld controller feature all the buttons, joysticks and sensors that you’d expect on a standard Wii controller, along with a microphone, speaker and camera. Games can leverage both the TV and the screen on the controller simultaneously and can be used to offer a different view of the game. It also seems that the controller can be used as a portable gaming system when away from the TV and main games console.

Interesting, but it’ll be interesting to see how Nintendo keeps the cost of the controller down to something reasonable. It’s hard to see how extra consoles for multiplayer gaming are going to be ‘reasonably’ priced.

That’s one controller I don’t want to throw at my HDTV!

Here’s what we know:

  • The console will run at full HD
  • Internal storage plus the ability to use SD cards and USB flash memory
  • Backward compatible with Wii games and accessories (like the Wii Remote and Wii Fit board)
  • Launching between 1 April and 31 December 2012

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Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology.

Disclosure

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

All opinions expressed on Hardware 2.0 are those of Adrian Kingsley-Hughes. Every effort is made to ensure that the information posted is accurate. If you have any comments, queries or corrections, please contact Adrian via the email link here. Any possible conflicts of interest will be posted below. [Updated: February 23, 2010] - Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has no business relationships, affiliations, investments, or other actual/potential conflicts of interest relating to the content posted so far on this blog.

Biography

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology -- whether that be by learning to program, building a PC from a pile of parts, or helping them get the most from their new MP3 player or digital camera.

Adrian has authored/co-authored technical books on a variety of topics, ranging from programming to building and maintaining PCs. His most recent books include "Build the Ultimate Custom PC", "Beginning Programming" and "The PC Doctor's Fix It Yourself Guide". He has also written training manuals that have been used by a number of Fortune 500 companies.

Adrian also runs a popular blog under the name The PC Doctor, where he covers a range of computer-related topics -- from security to repairing and upgrading.

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RE: Nintendo unveils the Wii U
MikeJason 28th Sep
The new system is also an attempt by Nintendo to capture ******** gamers, who have shied away from the company's family-friendly titles. car title loan
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LOL
harlawkid 7th Jun
yeah I wouldn't waant to throw that piece of kit at my TV either. I wonder if anybody in the exibition at e3 will???
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After the simple, elegant, casual-gamer-friendly Wii remote, they want to do this?

Surely this is a joke.

If they're serious about something like this, it basically means they've thrown everything away that made the Wii popular.
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@CobraA1: Not really this is just a new controller for the WII. The only issue is the current Wii console lacks the smarts to deal with it. So you have a new console. While they are at they add full HD ability and few other feature. Now you have that the Wii was with all the new console can do. You can still play all the games and use all you accessories you had with the Wii on the WiiU. This just adds to what the you can do.
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RE: Nintendo unveils the Wii U
hjenkins1 7th Jun
I believe it is just an add-on controller not something that is required for but a handful of games and maybe some DS games on the go?
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Ugh...
LiquidLearner Updated - 7th Jun
Do you guys report without actually reading anything? Or perhaps even watching the E3 press conference? You know, the one where Iwata states repeatedly that this is not a portable game system and requires the console to be used. I mean honestly, how can you get the details so f'in wrong? Also, it supports USB Hard drives, flash drives and SD cards. So you can have plenty of storage.

And it doesn't throw out everything Nintendo did with the Wii, it builds on it. This is a device that will eventually replace the Wii but they will coexist for a few years before that happens. Much the way the DS/3DS are coexisting. It's a good strategy. The possibilities for this are nearly endless.

The only real question is, since it uses Bluetooth to stream everything to the controller, is will it be able to support more than one of the new controllers at once. They said 4 Wiimotes, but didn't mention multiple Wii U controllers.
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RE: Nintendo unveils the Wii U
bran.e.murray 8th Jun
This looks like a massive misstep to me. The Wii was new and exciting. This is a step backwards to the old controller+TV paradigm, except now it's controller+TV+TV.

Nintendo should have copied Kinect at a minimum, because Kinect is going to steal/is already stealing the casual gamer crowd that Nintendo originally hooked with the Wii. This will complete the migration.

Grandma, who found Wii Sports an accessible bridge to the video gaming younger generation, is not going to find a second screen to have to manage as appealing.
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Multi-monitor on a console?
blackepyon01@... Updated - 9th Jun
@bran.e.murray I rather like the idea of being able to multi-monitor on a game console.
In fact, I wish that PC games would be made to run on multiple monitors simultaniously like this. My home machine has 4 monitors on it, and I'd love to drag the map over onto another monitor so I can have it open at all times
But... Will it support my old Gamecube games? I still like those. I play just as many Gamecube games on my Wii as I do actuall Wii games.
...as long as it still supports the old remotes as well. The old motion sensor remote is what made the Wii and made the other consoles scramble for something as interactive as that. Losing that for the family games would be a massive blow to Wii fans.

The biggest fault I've always seen with the Wii is its lack of graphics horsepower, which kept it from being a true gaming system and kept it in the casual games sector. This new console seems to have fixed that. Hopefully they won't be a generation behind when it comes out like the last Wii, and that the small form factor doesn't create heat issues.

For RP games and FPS games, this kind of new controller would be awesome, especially that the screen is touch sensitive. Imagine having your entire inventory at your fingertips without additional button presses to access it, or your weapons/armor layouts at a single touch. Or even personally customizable button layouts to control it how you like it. It very well may revolutionize the way we play games, especially if they can get the precision of the controller to rival that of a mouse. I for one have hated FPSs on consoles simply because of the lack of minute control that a keyboard/mouse gives me. I guess we'll see how that turns out in the future.
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RE: Nintendo unveils the Wii U
MikeJason 28th Sep
The new system is also an attempt by Nintendo to capture ******** gamers, who have shied away from the company's family-friendly titles. car title loan

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