A series of a few different tech demos today comprised our (and every media outlet’s) first experience with Nintendo’s Wii U. In case you’ve been completely removed from the news for the past 72 hours, the Wii U is a high-definition console from Nintendo that sports some powerful innards. However, more interestingly, it also features a controller that—once again—is nothing like anything else. The primary differentiating factor is its inclusion of a 6” touch screen running at 480p resolution (the same as the Wii’s regular television resolution)—opening up the door to second-screen possibilities similar in many ways to those experienced with the Nintendo DS. There are plenty of complicating details regarding this, but that’s the gist of the story.
The Wii U controller brings something of a DS dual-screen experience to console gaming.
Moving onto my thoughts: Right off the bat, the first thing we noticed was how light the controller actually felt. Though I had previously heard some complaints about ergonomics, I actually had no trouble adjusting very quickly to the feel of the controller. The trigger buttons and everything else feels tight, though, of course, we’re a long way away from the final production design. For that same reason, comments about the quality of the controller’s touch screen are probably also premature—but for the sake of going on the record, it looked very nice. The pixel density is obviously very high for 480p on a 6” screen, and that plus great viewing angles and brightness/contrast makes looking at the screen pleasant. Hopefully Nintendo’s suppliers maintain this level of quality once manufacturing is taking place.
Beyond all of that, the functionality of the system also seems spot-on. The motion control is accurate, and the gyrometer functions (such as what was showcased in the Shield Pose tech demo, which you can see in our HD footage from the show floor) work without any sort of detectable delay. It seems like a logical step forward from the Wii into possibly more hardcore territory, though a lot of question marks still remain—mostly because the software we saw today was all very proof-of-concept.
All of the demos showcased neat ideas for what could be accomplished with the new interface. The Super Mario Bros. Mii demo was, well, Mario, and the Zelda render was drop-dead gorgeous (seriously, for how many years now has an HD Zelda game been a fanboy’s dream?).
This is a very Mario Mario game. Too bad it was the only game we really saw!
But the most interesting in context with the new possibilities provided by the controller were two other demos: Shield Pose (which required the player to move the controller around in 3-D space to face a particular direction and block shots from an opponent) and Mii Battle (which saw one player assuming the role of a UFO, chasing after two other on-foot players in a shooter game). Both of these would make a pretty good full game if fleshed out considerably—the former probably working well in some sort of Rhythm Heaven-esque compilation and the latter as a much more extensive shooter. Although, Ubisoft is already sort of taking the initiative on the shooter front with their Killer Freaks from Outer Space title—a game which relies on the controller screen for a very similar sort of “counter-op” versus experience.
There’s definitely a long way to go before we know whether or not this controller screen feature factors into something seriously useful for most developers. It could, at the very least, provide for a much cleaner on-screen interface and menu accessibility, leaving less clutter and distraction for the player to deal with when digesting a game. And at best, it could mean for much richer local multiplayer experiences. Lots of possibilities apply, but we’ll wait to reserve judgment until we see some marketable products where the developers have had the time to fully explore their options.