Nintendo has done it again, with Wii-U.

[Crazybone126]

[SadPanda]

[Smokey]

xbox already has giant controllers downpat

lol beat me too it

[Fallax]

Crazy, I think that's the reason that asymmetrical gameplay is being pushed by 3rd parties in those video interviews. We are so used to the idea of symmetrical multiplayer that at first we balk at the idea of asymmetrical gameplay but when you listen to some of their ideas...it's a whole new world. I recall one suggestion was that player 1 could be using the tablet to make intricate incision into a patient in an ambulance while player 2 is driving with a Wii remote. Another I heard was a player could use the Wii remote in Tekken to fight while player 2 could use the tablet to add real time changes to the arena/stage.

Nintendo made asymmetrical multiplayer popular with Super Mario Galaxy. This would take things to a whole new level.

But, the ability to use more than 1 tablet is being considered but it may simply be cost prohibitive which would prevent developers from supporting it.

Imagine being an EMT on Ghost Recon or Call of Duty. Using the touchpad to do surgery while your friends are gunning people down. Or being a general with the touchpad and commanding your troops with your friends being in the field either following your orders or doing their own thing.

Which is fine, but that's where I question how well this thing will do. If it's just one extra screen, for multiplayer stuff it's just a PS3/360 with an extra screen. It'll have Ninty's great first party games, but I just question how many of the 100 million PS3/360 owners will care enough to "upgrade" to a Wii U. Wii owners who haven't jumped ship yet will like it for sure, it's a comparable or even slightly more powerful console than the PS3/360 that plays all those great franchises, but I just can't see them repeating wii's success with this machine if the current indications are true. I also don't see the casuals wanting to buy another Wii that you still use the same controller with, but it has an extra screen now. They don't give a damn about HD, so they'll just keep their wiis.

It's a good solid console, and it'll no doubt have excellent games... But so were Gamecube and N64. All had great games. I think this one will have much better third party support, and it'll do well.. just not Wii well.

I think it will sell as well as the Xbox 360 (around 50m). At least till it gets cheaper.

[SadPanda]

Imagine being an EMT on Ghost Recon or Call of Duty. Using the touchpad to do surgery while your friends are gunning people down. Or being a general with the touchpad and commanding your troops with your friends being in the field either following your orders or doing their own thing.

And so nobody ever becomes a medic cause all they wanna do in a shooter is shoot things dead and blow them away with air strikes.

The only reason the medic class works is because it is instant. Otherwise you'd be just as dead as the doofus who doesn't understand how to go through a doorway or move between cover.

Now if you want to combine that "arrow blocking whatever" with say a hospital game or CSI type game where moving the Pad over the screen shows "hidden dammage" like broken bones or "bodily fluids" at the crime scene... thats a gimmick that might work.

[TimmyJ]

I'd hope for at least 2 controllers to be able to function at once with the WiiU. The resolution sent to the controllers may be lessened by frame buffer requirements, but you could still have 2 players on equal footing playing competitively or co-operatively - this could still be supplemented by asymmetrical multiplayer features, but it would allow all kinds of interesting local multiplayer features. The controller could then conceivably be sold separately, whilst ensuring the feeling of proper local multiplayer would be very present.

I'm interested in what the front camera's capable of in terms of resolution, refresh (what's the appropriate word here? "Capture"?) rate, image processing ability of the controller, and how much/quickly data can be sent to and from it. Because it could conceivably perform eye-tracking and, therefore, 3D. Imagine looking at the 2D image on your TV, holding the controller up to see the TV through the controller, and seeing a 3D, augmented reality version of the initial image.

All told though, I think it looks pretty nifty and I wouldn't mind getting one. The only thing that gets on my tits is the fact that a couple of people have referred to this as "innovative"... which is almost as much of a malapropism as "useful" is with regards to the iPad.

And I think anyone with a PS3 and PSVita only stands to gain from Nintendo's approach. No developer ever bothered taking real advantage of remote play features due to there not being a measurable market for the necessary crossover of device ownership, but with the WiiU this will change. PS3 and PSVita owners may get the kinds of features that are technically possible because Nintendo has made it logistically possible. Double win.

[SadPanda]

the Wii uPad has no 3D screen... so no 3D images.

and the iPad is very useful, not for me. but for everyone else in my family it is.

[TimmyJ]

Head tracking can essentially create a 3D image on a 2D screen. There's a demo of someone doing it by strapping some infrared pointers to his head and using the Wiimote to track them.

And how is the iPad more useful than a laptop? They even ship with keyboards.

[SadPanda]

The iPad as a companion device that doesn't get malware, that doesn't need constant OS updates, that doesn't constantly have problems and lets the operator do what they want (watch Netflix, go to Facebook and other social media, and standard email) is very useful for people who don't know how to do semi advanced computer maintenance. If you can't see that as useful to a demographic of people who don't want to learn how to properly use and maintain a computer in an age when internet access is damn near mandatory for everything then you need to go out of your shell and meet some people.

If your example counts as 3D then nifty... i just saw that as what is essentially a Kinect-eque demo. use body do manipulate camera.

[Viper]

Something else I've noticed about the tablet. It appears as though it has not just a camera but also Wii-like sensor bar LED's to the side.

If this unit were placed in front of your TV, you'd have Wii, Kinect and Move right there.

[frosty]

um... kinect? not quite. not even move actually, since the camera has no beacon to track.

[XboxEvolved]

Well considering the 3DS isn't doing as good as they expected and in the middle of the year with no holidays, in a bad economy, disaster in Japan, etc it still manages to sell/ship give or take 3 million in the span of 2 1/2 months or so. I think a lot of that had to do with the perception that it was still just a DS system by many consumers partially, and it competed with a lot of tablet devices and the every growing mobile space. These are challenges that Sony most certainly will face head on with Vita especially considering their device competes with these devices even closer than Nintendo's. With the Wii U, the tech behind it isn't all that interesting and in fact a lot of companies do what it does in various different ways, but it is the way that Nintendo puts there own spin on it that makes it unique.

I still am yet to be a believer but I think it will be a very interesting system. A lot of people say Nintendo is coming out with it early, I say like other strong innovative companies such as Apple they are simply keeping up the momentum as much as they can. Even if this system is $300 with a game and the tablet and PS3 and 360 were say $200-250 with a decent bundle by end of 2012, it will still sell relatively well I think. My thoughts, are all three companies are now catering to very different crowds, the PS3 caters to the elites, the 360 caters to the trend crowd, and Nintendo caters to the "rest of us" crowd which is probably the biggest crowd out there. I personally never "got" what Wii was about but millions other did simply because I fall into a different crowd of people. Investors seem to be spooked by it but I think in the end it should do well, although I agree it may not do as well as Wii did we will just have to wait and see.

[Segitz]

Something else I've noticed about the tablet. It appears as though it has not just a camera but also Wii-like sensor bar LED's to the side.

If this unit were placed in front of your TV, you'd have Wii, Kinect and Move right there.

The conference showed the tablet being used as a golf tee... so adding some LEDs makes the Wii Mote a bit more precise, when pointing down.

[shenglu]

You bet your ass, if third-party developers ü a Wii game, they will migrate to PS3/Vita This feature allows an extra buck. They have gone through for the Wii ü trouble, PSP is more than the U of the Wii controller, so there is no reason why they will not port these games.

[OmniStalgic]

^what the fook is this