Wii U is a Future You Want.

Reggie was at E3, and he was the man who primarily introduced us to Wii U.

Nintendo at their E3 2011 press conference pulled back the curtain on its newest console: Wii U; a console that will make a name for itself like Wii did, not with system specifications, but with a distinctive and valuable controller.

Now, you’d think everyone would be excited, parading in the streets, like many have with previous game consoles, but with Wii U this does not seem to be the case. With this console, many people are confused and skeptical, believing the console to be a current generation system specification accompanied by a new, gimmicky, expensive controller that will be outdated in two years time.

Although I have not touched the controller or console as of yet, I can confidently say any doubts about the controller and the system’s power is unwarranted. Why? Because I have played and owned the Nintendo DS and 3DS, and essentially, Wii U is the console equivalent that will realize any vision developers want or have wanted to do with the concept of dual screen gaming.

I’ll get to system specifications further down.

Marvel at Wii U’s controller and imagine the possibilities. oh… by the way, the actual hardware is above the controller picture. 

 

Before I begin explaining what is possible with Wii U, I’ll detail the controller for those of you who do not know what the Wii U controller is capable of.

Note: Wii U will work with Wii controllers (Non-motion+ Wii remotes may be the only problem, when playing Wii U games, but Wii U is backwards compatible with Wii) and other devices such as the Wii Balance board.

At its core, it can act as a second screen, to the TV, exactly how the DS line handles two screens. The controller features a 6.2 inch touch screen. It also can stream games without lag to the controller, which allows you to display and play most Wii U games on the controller instead of the TV (Wii support for this feature has not been confirmed). Overall, it’s essentially a Classic Controller Pro with a microphone, camera, touch screen, motion controls, built-in speakers, a headphone port, and the usual four shoulder buttons, four face buttons, a control pad, two analog pads, start, select, and home buttons.

Click this link for an infographic on what I just said, and more.

This DS is the Wii U’s uncle, and Wii U has taken up its uncle’s ideals and has improved upon them.

 

With the DS line, Nintendo and third party developers proved that dual screens provide a most unique gaming experience that cannot necessarily always be replicated by other means. What do I mean? Well, when was the last time on a home console, could you see what items each racer has in Mario Kart without cluttering up the screen, see every item in your inventory and use any item on the fly, have a fully detailed map up and always visible, be able to click on any of four moves in Street Fighter and automatically have your character do it without any further input, never have your HUD appear on the main screen for a game that has a HUD, have a second top-down perspective on your character while still having a first-person perspective, play Okami without having the game pause to use the protagonist’s powers, command your allies with drawn pathways in real-time, and so forth? All that I just mentioned has already been done on the DS or was theoretically possible.

There are many other things it could do, but easily grabbing goo balls in World of Goo and creating structures with them, drawing lines to guide Kirby, clicking characters in a sports game to pass to, operating on virtual patients, voice commands, and whatever else has already been done with Wii and/or Playstation 3. Speaking of Wii, some, if not many Wii U games will be playable with the Wii remote, Wii remote and nunchuck, the Wii Balance Board, the Classic controller, and so forth, which allows for all the creative Wii control schemes, and concepts to be applied for Wii U games as well.

I did not directly mention this concept, but this is one of the main possibilities that can be done with Wii U.

 

To clarify, Wii U’s controller is not confined to what the the DS line, Wii remote and Move controller can do. How so? Well, since five players can play at once on the new system, first-person shooters can now be played up to five people locally, and if you add in LAN support, that number goes from a maximum of eight to ten, and so forth. Also, one on one matches will become more personal, locally as one person gets the TV and the other person gets Wii U’s controller, ridding of screen hackers, assuming you’re not already using a LAN. Other ideas stemming from Nintendo is that one person, who is using the Wii U controller can hide from four other players who are using a TV. Another would be that the person with the Wii U controller is hunting down the four people who are on the TV. Other possibilities could be that players on the same screen initially could enter completely different rooms and not disrupt what is seen on the TV, but simply disappear into another room while the other player does whatever he or she was doing. Not to forget, players can do away with using a TV all together, if he or she chooses, and play on the controller for single player bouts.

Going on, you could potentially tilt the controller to tilt the world, draw on the screen to create platforms for your character to fall on while falling to the left, right, down or up in the world, press a shoulder button to start the character’s parachute, and issue a voice command to change the weather to rain, bring about an item of your choosing or whatever have you all within a second or two (This is theoretically possible on the 3DS and Vita). And other concepts could stem to commanding your armies on the touch screen in an RTS, while fighting in the battlefield like you would in God of War with your main hero unit on the TV, issuing voice commands such as stop, hold position, attack blue, cloak, so forth. It is also possible to be playing a survival first-person shooter, and draw lines on the screen, which is presenting a top down view of your character to instantly call forth walls of fire, build temporary walls, spikes, and whatever else against the zombie hoard as you run for your life, draining your magic meter, trying to slow the zombies down and survive. Think of it as being able to cast spells behind your character while he or she runs forward. Now, to conclude this paragraph, the ideas stated in this paragraph are my ideas, that I came up with in a few minutes time, but they’re something to think about, and I’m sure a real video game designer could think of many more creative ideas.

Click this link for some fan-made Wii U concepts. Click this link as well for more fan-made Wii U concepts. Click here too.

While it is entirely feasible to just continue on playing games on consoles like we do today, maybe it’s time for another earthshaking revelation. Now, you may say, well you know, controllers are fine the way they are… And with that, I’ll strike back stating that the industry and its controller is always in motion. There was a day when the control pad, analog stick, dual analog sticks, shoulder buttons, motion controls and the like was alien to the home console market, and now they are main staples in our industry. Therefore, to say, like Nintendo did with Wii and its introduction to motion gaming 101, Nintendo is now on the verge of combining the ideals of its portable strategy of 2004 to the present with a new home console that will further open pathways not previously open for the home console market.

Playstation Vita may be capable of pulling off the same things Wii U can, but can the Playstation 3 keep up its end of the bargain?

 

Theoretically, Sony could replicate what Wii U is doing, but there’s a problem with that theory. Vita cost $250 and a Playstation 3 cost at the very least $200, which equates to over $450, and that means not everyone who owns a PS3 will own Vita, and the opposite is true. There’s also another problem with the theory, Playstation 3 is not optimized like Wii U is to stream content between devices, to my knowledge, however that could change. And so far, unless I’m gravely mistaken, the only connectivity that comes close to what Wii U can do on the Playstation platforms, that has been shown, is switching specific game(s) from the Vita to Playstation 3 and vice-versa.

The image above is rendered on Wii U’s hardware in real-time, so to say, there’s nothing fake here. Look for yourself.   Click here for different a technical presentation of the console’s graphical capabilities.

 

Onto the system’s graphical prowess, Wii U is without a doubt a next-generation system. Why do I say this despite what others seem to think? Because I do not believe anyone can find a game on the Playstation 3 or Xbox 360 in screen-shot form, that follows a similar graphical style, compare it to a Zelda HD screen, and say with absolute confidence that the 360 or PS3 game looks better or identical in all graphic categories.

Based on what I can determine, Zelda HD demonstrates power beyond that of current generation capabilities, but it’s not leaps and bounds ahead like it was for the Nintendo 64 to the Nintendo Gamecube, so I’m sure someone can and will find a game that looks close to it graphically, as games are starting to hit a graphic barrier. A graphic barrier that prevents games from looking significantly better because there’s not as much room to improve or the potential is so great that most titles will lack of budget to support that kind of potential. And if I may say,  as previously hinted at, never again are we likely to see graphics leap out of control like they have with every other console generation, as people already believe the Uncharted series to boast movie quality visuals.

Do not forget, however, that although visuals are great, next-generation hardware is not all about great visuals, as it’s also about how much more you can display, do at one time, and so forth, when it comes to presenting games.

This is a comparable screenshot to Zelda HD. I chose it because of the marble floor, mainly…

 

Also, here’s Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. Doesn’t it sort of look like a very well done animated film? 

 

Nevertheless, for theory’s sake, Wii U is running on hardware that surpasses the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 only by a somewhat small, but noticeable amount, with some new development tools in the mix that allow for some cool effects not previously possible. So, let’s say it presents games that look better, but not significantly better than Playstation 3 games, and let us say it’s able to process five more characters or whatever have you at once than the PS3. Now, if this was true would it truly matter if Wii U does not appear much more powerful than current generation hardware? Personally, I’ll tell you no, it doesn’t matter. Why? Even if Microsoft and Sony release new systems in a couple of years, will their games look vastly better? Once again, I say no because of that graphic barrier I mentioned, that we’re starting to bump into. Sure, they may look better, but the difference probably won’t be too much different from what we currently see on the 360 and PS3.

To further explain, even if Microsoft and Sony outdo Nintendo graphically, it won’t likely be standard definition to high definition, but rather high definition to high definition with a minuscule amount of additional pixels and perhaps brainpower. In other words, how do you drastically improve on what is already so realistic looking it could be mistaken for a film at times? You do so by adding a few more irrelevant details to each already super realistic character model, improve the frame-rate, and make slightly smarter A.I. or slightly better physics, and maybe a slightly better view distance to the already obscene view distance games presently provide.

Galaxy in a way is like Super Mario Bros. for the NES; despite being on weaker hardware, it’ll not likely age anytime soon. 

Here The Boss is looking away in disgust from  Snake, declaring him a fool to say that she doesn’t look good on eleven year old hardware. And with her ‘belief’, that brings up another question, how much do specifications really matter?

 

To begin my conclusion, while more powerful hardware may give gamers a lot to look forward to, think about this… Visually, Super Mario Galaxy, a game featured on significantly weaker hardware in comparison to the 360 and PS3 can sit next to most 360 and PS3 games and pass as one without much debate. The same is true of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Super Smash Bros. Brawl could probably fake its way up there as well. Heck, you could go back to Gamecube and put Resident Evil 4, Rogue Squadron II, Wind Waker and others against 360 and PS3 titles too. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is also a good example, as well as Okami. Although honestly, with some of the titles I just listed, not all of them can stand against a 360 or PS3 title and be mistaken as one, but to an extent, they can flex their muscles and still look quite strong.

Perhaps its time we stop judging appearances, as that can be easily simulated, as evidenced by examples given above. Games, if they haven’t already are about to bump hard against that graphic barrier I spoke of, and gaming has already been gently bumping up against it. And even if we start judging next-generation graphics more by how much a console can process with A.I., physics, and the like when does that become irrelevant? You can only have a computer controlled man with a gun do so much before you have him randomly scratch his face for an itch or start rubbing his neck due to the stress of battle.

I’m sure Wii U has improved upon current generation technology, but my point is, assuming that’s true and believe me all indications seem to point at Wii U being a next-generation system, how much better could another Microsoft and Sony console get in comparison?

So, as graphics get closer to the point that they cannot possibly look any or much better, new ways to interact with video games need to be introduced. With that said, Wii U is Nintendo’s response.

Note: If you’d like to read an additional perspective about the graphic barrier I spoke of, click this link. It was written quite some time after I finished this article, and it is very well written. I recommend to anyone who has read this article to read it as well, as the writer does word some things better than I did myself.