Nintendo Wii U -- What we know so far about Nintendo's next console

Ricardo Trejo Jun 7, 2011 Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Us E3, Exclusive, Gaming, Geek Culture, Hardware, Industry News, News, Nintendo, Videos, breaking

I’ll say this; Nintendo had the perfect opportunity for complete gaming dominance today and they blew it. If I sound a little subjective then I’m sorry, but I’m still trying to process it all and justify Nintendo’s decision to go with this iPad w/ buttons in my mind instead of some serious hardware that potentially could ruin everyone else in the industry. 

Project Cafe gets a name

We were all drinking the kool-aid flavored “Nintendo is going hardcore” business”, and so we rightly believed some rumors that they might go with a simple “Nintendo” monicker for their latest system. But nope, they had to go with more of that same Wii idealism of having an original name at the cost of sounding even more ridiculous than PS Vita.

Project Cafe has now become Wii U, Wii-U, or WiiU — I’m not really sure how to spell it actually. Sure, this is good for search engines and all that, but how will that translate into mom’s and dad’s knowing the difference between the original Wii and its successor? It reminds me all much of the difficulties my own parents had when I had to explain to them what was so special about the Super Nintendo in relation to the Nintendo back in the early 90’s.

Wii U system is a no-show

We didn’t hear anything mentioned about the system, only news on how magical and innovative its controller will be. So no specs, no talk on how powerful it is or what we could expect in terms of an online experience. However, we have gotten our hands on a specification sheet:

• Available 2012

• Will run on a IBM Powered multi-core processor

• Supports all resolutions upto 1080p and will have HDMI outputs

• Will make use of internal flash storage memory, expandable with external hard drives and SD cards

• Hosts 4 USB ports

• The system itself will be backwards compatible with all Wii accessories, controllers, and games

• Its controller hosts a 6.2 inch screen with 16:9 ratio, capable of streaming upto 1080p uninterrupted and “lag-less” video from the console itself. It will have the traditional A, B, X, Y face buttons, as well as two analog circle pads, L, R, and ZL, and ZR shoulder buttons. It also has a built-in front facing camera, gyroscope, accelerometer, speakers, microphone, sensor strip, and even rumble.

Games and Third Party Support

While no games were demonstrated on stage or even formally announced, with the exception of a video featuring what appears to be a highly HD-fied version of Zelda, the Wii U only named a handful of games that would be supported for the upcoming platform:

• Smash Bros. (w/ connectivity to 3DS)
• Darksiders 2 will be available at launch
• Batman: Arkham City
• Dirt
• Tekken
• Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge
• Battlefield 3
• Metro: Last Night
• LEGO City Stories
• Ghost Recon Online
• Madden

Nintendo also had a few other concepts and interactive demo’s that were necessarily games, but more of just what the new controller and console might be able to do. 

What will games on the Wii U look like?

For the most part we only saw games that were already in development for other systems, so nothing original was divulged. Though we have gotten our hands on the Zelda footage aforementioned above, as well as the tech demo of what appears to be real-time game footage seen below:

Thoughts?

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