Wii U controller has a touchscreen, camera and more!

Is nothing a secret anymore? Unveiled at Nintendo’s E3 press conference, the Wii U‘s controller will sport a 6.2-inch touchscreen that will provide “tablet-like” experiences, include a built-in camera, traditional controls and more.

It looks like the Nikkei hit it right on the mark didn’t it? According to Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, the Wii U also includes two circle analog circle pads (like on the 3DS), a D-Pad, A/B/X/Y buttons, ZL/ZR, L/R triggers, a mic, speakers, accelerometer and a gyroscope.

The Wii Remote’s Home, plus and minus buttons are also present on the Wii U controller. Read on to learn more about the new Wii U controller.

The first thing you’ll notice about the Wii U controller is its touchscreen. A Nintendo demo reel showed a player drawing and coloring a picture of Link with a stylus. From the looks of it, the tablet appears to be almost as precise as a Wacom tablet, although we’ll reserve judgment on that when we get some hands-on time with the controller.

The second most important thing you’ll notice about the controller is that video can be beamed directly between the TV and vice versa. According to Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, “data is wirelessly transmitted without latency issues.” History has proven that there is always a lag when wirelessly beaming lots of data; we’ll see whether or not Nintendo really has found the secret sauce to solving that problem or not.

Like the Wii Remote, the Wii U controller opens up a whole world of possibilities to designing new game experiences, outside of simply making everything shinier and prettier. With the Wii U, Nintendo is attempting to create “wider” and “deeper” game experiences that competitors like the PS3 and Xbox 360 can’t do.

And just like the Wii Remote, the Wii U controller will have motion controls built right in. In a brief demo, we saw an HD version of Wii Sports baseball where one player pitches and catches a ball with a virtual mitt displayed on the touchscreen. In another demo, the Wii U controller was placed on the floor and a Wii Remote was used to shoot a golf ball off it tee and shoot slide shurikens from the controller to targets on screen.

As we previously mentioned, the Wii U controller sounds a lot like a portable gaming system, right? Wrong. Satoru Iwata says that the Wii U controller was “not designed to be a portable gaming system.” Although the device allows players to game on it while the TV is playing a regular channel, the Wii U controller is not a new portable. Think of it like an tablet, but one that stays indoors all the time.

Excited for the Wii U controller? EA games, Irrational Games’ Ken Levine and many more are excited just as well. With EA’s pledge for Battlefield and Madden experiences unlike what we’ve ever seen before, it seems like a safe bet that the Wii U could expand the market yet again. Everybody loves new experiences, just go ask Microsoft and its Kinect.

Raymond Wong
Categories: Featured, Gaming
Tags: E3, e3 tradeshow, Nintendo, nintendo wii u, Wii U