The new Nintendo Wii U
The Nintendo Wii was not as powerful as the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 and it even had a brand new control scheme using motion sensitive innards rather than physical buttons and sticks to enable interaction, but it still sold by the bucket load because it offered non-gamers a chance to get in on the act without being put off by the relatively exclusory nature of the industry. Of course the Nintendo Wii did this by slightly alienating those already entrenched in the gaming lifestyle and so to counter this and remedy criticism of the original the manufacturer has come up with the brand new Wii U, recently revealed in public for the first time at the E3 event.
The Wii U gets its quirky name from the fact that Nintendo wants to win back the support of long time gamers while still appealing to its broad Wii-owning user base. Of course the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 have fairly odd names in themselves, but many will be glad that the Project Cafe codename attributed to the second Wii during development did not stick it out for the full release.
The hardware inside the original Nintendo Wii was not up to the task of pumping out true high definition visuals, unlike the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, which allowed Nintendo to keep the cost of the console down. However, the Wii U will bring HD visuals to the table with Nintendo promising that they will be easily as good as if not better than its two console rivals. At the moment only a few technical demos showing off the power of the Wii U have surfaced, so the graphical fidelity of in-game action on the finished article remains to be seen. However, Nintendo seems confident that it will be enough to satisfy those who are crying out for more visual clout.
Throwing the traditional design of a controller out the window and emphasising motion controls made the first Nintendo Wii and its remote a success, so the news that another brave control method is accompanying the Wii U may not be a surprise. The Wii U's controller looks like a handheld console in its own right, largely thanks to its 6.2 inch screen which supports touch interactions, just like the portable Nintendo 3DS. The plan is to put gameplay elements such as menus, inventories and other items onto the smaller screen so that the boundaries of what gamers will expect can be expanded. While the Wii U will make the most out of HDTVs in living rooms worldwide, the controller will double up as a substitute for the large display, with users able to switch from one to the other seamlessly so that others can watch TV without interrupting a session of play.
Nintendo has yet to finalise the details about what kind of hardware will be giving the Wii U its graphical grunt. However, reports suggest that IBM and AMD will be handling the main processing and graphics chip respectively. Both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are seen as solid graphical performers even after so many years on the market so Nintendo should have a shot at matching these when it comes to number crunching, provided it can get the pricing right and not oversell its new machine.
The launch line up and future releases for the Nintendo Wii U are not yet known, but it would be safe to assume that the firm's most popular franchises such as Mario and Zelda will feature at some point, if only because demos at E3 showed prerendered scenes from both worlds. An HD remix of a sequence from Zelda: Twilight Princess showed real promise and was enough eye candy for fans of the series. Nintendo is also striking deals with third party game firms so that big name releases will appear on Wii U, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 with consistent graphics and gaming experience across each. The big fish for Nintendo to net will be the Call of Duty series of first person shooters, although this has yet to be confirmed.
There are a few quibbles being levelled at the rumoured Wii U specifications ahead of its launch and they may remain until it is revealed in greater detail. For example, initially it was thought that only one of the new screen-based controllers could be used in conjunction with the console at a time, but Nintendo has since said that two will work simultaneously. Secondly the lack of DVD playback has annoyed some, although as Nintendo has pointed out most people already have a device for achieving this.
Ahead of its 2012 release window the Nintendo Wii U will be attempting to convince current console owners that they need this latest HD system. If it succeeds then the games industry will be looking very different from its current state, with the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 no longer the only platforms aiming to satisfy the hardcore audience. Of course rumours of a new Xbox arriving at the next E3 might put a spanner in the works.
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