Today Nintendo officially announced their new system called the Wii U. What’s the value? Great question. Essentially the graphics appear at this point to be comparable to the 360/PS3 but the controller is funky. I mean really funky. And that, my friends, appears to be your value from Nintendo. You can play the same games on your PS3/360 with comfortable controllers. Or you can buy a whole new system that supports Mario and Zelda but you have to use this thing.
It’s basically a small tablet with some nubs and buttons on the sides. It looks very strange but reports are that it’s comfortable.
To say I’m surprised is an understatement. Granted, the big N had to do something different to standout amongst its current and unknown future competition. But, this is more than a gamble. Once again Nintendo is asking 3rd party developers to learn something new (previously motion controls) and make it work for only Nintendo. That means more development costs with likely little reward. See Dead Space on the Wii for reference. What could they have done differently? I would have liked to see a HD console with HD Nintendo games and the same 3rd party support that Sony and Microsoft have. Even just a decent network akin to Xbox Live would help. Price it the same, and they make a great argument for all of us buy one – as they do have the best 1st party titles out there.
It may be too early to judge but at first glance I am unimpressed.
*UPDATE: As it turns out, the tablet-controller is for all users to share. There will be a 1:1 ratio of tablet to console. It appears for local multiplayer you will either share the tablet or use Wii-Remotes.