Wii U – E3 Impressions

I got a chance to spend about 15 mins playing with the newly-announced Wii U at E3 on Tuesday.  Here are my thoughts:

For me, the key issue is whether or not they’ll be able to get multiple Wii U controllers to connect to a single Wii U console.  If so, I think it has the potential to revolutionize local multiplayer games, by allowing players to have information that is “secret” from each other .  This could be huge for TCGs, board games, strategy games, and sports games.  If you can only use one of the things with each console, then I think they are missing out bigtime.  I wasn’t able to get a clear answer on this at the show.  If you think about it, it basically turns the home TV into a huge, HD, Nintendo DS, which is kinda cool.

I was also told that the controller allows you to transfer the game from the TV to the controller “on the fly.”   This could prove very useful in households where Mom & Dad decide they want to watch something on the big living room TV.  Instead of having to turn the game off, the kid could just keep playing on the controller.

Another thing worth noting, I believe, is that the controller will basically allow developers to port iOS/Android phone and tablet apps to the console.  With a decent online store, this could help them protect themselves against the threat that these devices pose to traditional consoles as the Wii U controller seems to me to support pretty-much all of the functionality that’s available in the iPad. Also, when it comes to future-proofing, one thing that seems very clever to me is that the console itself ought to be pretty easy to replace without needing to replace the controller.  So, if they suddenly find themselves underpowered on a technical level they could just release a new console with updated specs that remains backwards compatible without making the controllers themselves obsolete.

Given the backward compatibility with the existing Wii software and hardware, as well as the ability to now support ports of all major gaming platforms, and the wealth of innovative new design possibilities, I’m cautiously optimistic.