Nintendo Wii U - Successor to Wii is announced at E3 2011

So here we are, Nintendo has had it's press conference at E3 and once again, they pulled out the big guns. The biggest of those guns, of course was the Wii's successor, codenamed Project Café. They have now announced the name to be Wii U. In my opinion, not the best idea for a name, but certainly not the worst. 

This new console features a totally new controller, along with support all Wii controllers. The new controller is certainly a departure from the Wii remote's look. It features a 6.2-inch, 16:9 touch screen and traditional button controls, including dual analogue sticks, 4 trigger buttons and it still retains motion controls. According to Nintendo "This combination removes the traditional barriers between games, players and the TV by creating a second window into the video game world." The controller also feature a microphone and camera, which will be used for video calls. Another interesting thing about the controller is the sensor bar, this was shown to be used in conjunction with the Wii remote. At E3, it showed the Wii U controller on the floor, with a golf ball and tee on its screen, and a person using a Wii remote as a golf club. The coolest feature about the Wii U controller is the ability to transition from you playing the game on the TV to you playing it on the touch screen on the controller. Nintendo stressed that this wasn't for portable use however, the console streams the game to the controller, with no latency issues.


The Wii U will have the ability to play Wii games, but sadly not Gamecube games.

The new Wii U controller

The Wii U console itself

The console itself features:

• approximately 1.8 inches tall, 6.8 inches wide and 10.5 inches long
• an IBM Power®-based multi-core processor 
• internal flash memory, as well as the option to expand its memory using an SD card or an external HDD
• to accomodate external hard drives, there are four USB 2.0 connectors (USB 3.0 support would have been nice)
• 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 480p and 480i support with HDMI, component, S-video and composite cables supported

The Wii U's graphics really do look fabulous and this tech demo shows: With

While there were no games on show, Nintendo have made some tech demos to showcase the Wii U's ability to people at E3, and with some developers announcing they are bringing games like Assassin's Creed and Arkham City, it seems the Wii U will be pointing towards core gamers.

With a release in 2012 has been announced, and developers seeming really excited to develop on this system, with EA, Ubisoft and many more publishers praising its controller, 2012 and the end of the world just suddenly looked a lot better.

Please note, the Wii U is NOT an add-on for the Wii; it is a fully fledged console.