[Phoenix Gamma]

I'm gonna have to disagree with everyone. This is a pretty logical step for Nintendo, whose been trying to make Connectivity a big thing since the Gamecube. There are some pretty awesome game ideas to be used here, like the baseball demo or the shield demo or the hide and seek game. And I love the idea of throwing the game onto another screen when someone wants to watch something, or taking the game to another room. And from early connectivity experiments with stuff like Four Swords Adventures, I think there are going to be a lot of really novel ideas coming to the system, as well as the typical HD games that enthusiast gamers care about (you know, the ones where the only way to interact with the environment is with a gun).

People who have actually held the thing are saying it's a lot more comfortable than it looks. It's a lot smaller than it looks (smaller than an iPad). Plus all the Wii accessories are compatible, so people who already took the plunge with the Wii can get more use out of their stuff.

I think the important thing to remember is that we've pushed the traditional controller to its limit. There are only so many ways you can interact with a game using the same controller since the PSX/N64 era. When Gamecube, PS2, and XBox were out, everything was the fucking same. Which console do I buy? Who cares? The Wii taught people that you shouldn't be restricted with how you play games...and that competent hardware actually fucking matters. I think Wii U shows that they've learned a thing or two in that regard.

There's a place in Florida called Disney Quest. It's a big fucking arcade, but it has games there that you literally can't play anywhere else. There's a room covered in tv screens showing a big ocean, and the floor is basically a big boat. Everyone takes a canon and one person is the captain steering the ship. You sail around and shoot other ships until this ghost appears, and the whole crew engages him in a battle. It's really intense, but really exciting, because you're very involved, physically. You really can't replicate that on a traditional game pad, or even the Wiimote. But using the screen and the gyros, you could come close. There are more games like that at Disney Quest, and they are REALLY fun and stick with me more than Joe Shooter 5: Shoot Harder.

Compared to Microsoft desperately trying to enhance the 360 with the Kinect, and Sony trying to convince me that Move matters at all, I think this is a pretty neat idea, with room for really cool new mechanics as well as traditional games (which Nintendo can now actually ENJOY with a machine whose specs aren't shit.) Everyone wins. Where else can you go from here aside from "better graphics, same controller" and "better graphics, taste controls"?