Today at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in LA, known as E3, Nintendo officially unveiled its widely anticipated second generation Wii — the Nintendo Wii U.
And oh boy, it seems to be delighting Nintendo fans nearly as much as the first. The biggest reason: new Wii controllers, which emulate in many ways the handheld Nintendo DS gaming devices. They feature a six inch touch screen display, traditional D-Pad controllers, an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a microphone, and a camera. And it enables Nintendo to make a confident push into what’s being described in gaming communities as multi-screen video gaming.
What exactly does multi-screen gaming mean on the Wii U? Let’s take popular Mario Cart game as an example. Your TV will show the main driving screen, with the new screen on your controller displaying the map. For Wii Golf, the screen acts as the tee on which you hit that virtual golf ball. For Call of Duty, it acts as a sniper scope.
And you can use the Wii U for far more than just gaming — almost like a tablet. You can draw, play traditional board games, watch movies on the device, browse the web, and seamlessly flick content from the controller’s screen onto your TV. It even supports video chat with friends and family. And if someone wants to watch TV, you can quickly switch the game over to the controller only.
We recommend you watch the official demo to truly take in all the possibilities of the new Wii U:
For content and game developers, Nintendo noted in the announcement that there’s lots of flexibility, describing the Wii U as “a new structure for home entertainment.” And yes, as you’ll note in the video above, much crisper graphics have come to the second generation Wii.
What does the U stand for? In the announcement at E3 Nintendo noted, “It’s unique, unifying, and utopian.”
When the original Wii hit stores it blew the world away with its entirely new gaming experience, largely aimed at casual gamers. With rumors leading up to today’s official unveiling of touchscreen controllers, better graphics and a more powerful gaming console – all three of which we now know are true – Nintendo is going after more hard core gamers in this second generation Wii U. For those of you with first generation Wiis, the Wii U is backward compatible, meaning all Wii games and traditional Wiimote controllers will still work with the new console.
The device is slated to hit stores in 2012.
Nintendo’s annual profits are down 66% from last year, so the company has been under pressure to seriously wow gamers with this next generation Wii. Adding to this is of course the hype and success around the Xbox Kinect (10M units sold to date) and Playstation Move (8M units sold to date). Lucky for Nintendo, Sony (makers of the Playstation) and Microsoft (makers of the Xbox) aren’t slated to launch their next consoles until 2014 – giving the Wii ample time to gain market share and up those profits.
Do you plan to by the Wii U? What excites you most about the new console? Let us know in the comments!
