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[unsilentwill]

My actual quote was "Frankly the Wii hasn't been worth the money until Skyward Sword, the only game that couldn't be done without motion control at its core".

What I'm confused about is dismissal of technology before you see the applications. And yeah, I thought I made clear that the Wii U also isn't actually all that innovative. The system is a year away and there are like 2 games actually announced and people are ripping this thing to shreds.

In fact the Wii U is all about going away from strange and new and possible commercial failure by making an HD DS living room. So, there's not much to worry about. I love old games as much as anyone else, it's awesome, I'll play the ports and the dual analog stuff. And I agree there there's thousand and thousands of amazing games for the traditional set up yet to come, but motion control and 3D especially are at the core of what I think gaming can do, and if companies want to try that I will give them the benefit of the doubt.

Edit: and at the risk of sounding like a hypocrite, playing games like Wii Sports Resort (which honestly makes me ill to type) Red Steel 2, and the 3DS at Best Buy get me excited for what can be done with new tech, not just a fetish for shiny.

[s0]

Uh.. I own a 3DS and I find the 3D effect to be a visual gimmick that adds very little to games but yeah, whatever.

[lokijki]

From reading various hands on things about the controller, it seems like the general consensus is, "I know it looks bulky, but it actually feels great." And seeing as no one here has actually held one (as far as I know), we could probably do without arguing that it won't work well as a controller.

Also, I would say there are plenty of games for Wii that wouldn't work without motion control at their core. Wii Sports being an obvious one, but plenty of games just wouldn't have worked as well without it. And plenty of games that didn't need motion control at their core were still improved by them, like Resident Evil 4 and Twilight Princess, as mentioned before. To say that the entire console is only worth one game at the end of it's lifespan is ridiculous. I bought one at launch and have spent plenty of time with it since then, and I don't regret buying it. (And I wasn't even planning on buying Skyward Sword.)

[s0]

There's one flaw in the controller's design that's already obvious without ever having used it: You have to reposition your hand to press the Start/Select buttons.

[AshfordPride]

But the truth of the matter is that most game designers aren't "innovating." They are "experimenting." They are making an attempt at developing or designing something different. The positive term "innovate" should be reserved for after the fact. It is an affirmation to be applied to an experiment that has already proven successful.

Very well said.

At the same time, I don't understand some of the resistance in the core gaming demographics toward the kind of experiments that hardware developers have been engaging in. Experimentation is necessary for progress and growth. It doesn't always lead to positive results, but it is essential for change.

I don't oppose all experimentation.  If I did, video gaming would be a very bad hobby to get into.  Series, consoles, and even entire genres can undergo sweeping changes in little time at all, it's very volatile place.  I've come to accept many changes over the years, analog controls, shoulder buttons, three dimension graphics, etc.  However, I reserve the right to be leery towards things that don't interest me, things so far out of my schema for what I want out of a game that causes me mental strain trying to come up with ways that someone can use this to make a game that I would like.

When I see people being openly resistant towards experimental hardware design, I can't help but think that they are simply afraid of change.

But it's not very experimental.  The point I'm trying to drive home about the Wii U is that it is more or less everything we've seen for the DS and the Wii just polished up a bit more.  In my experience with the Wii and the DS, I saw a significant less amount of games that appealed to me because of Nintendo's choice of experimenting.

[AshfordPride]

There's one flaw in the controller's design that's already obvious without ever having used it: You have to reposition your hand to press the Start/Select buttons.

Everyone I talk to says this.  Anarkex was the first person I knew to bring it up and now everyone seems to be saying it.  I'm still hopeful that it's something they could fix, as I recall the Wiimote we first saw when the Wii was revealed was much different from the final product. 

Still, this sort of design harkens back to controllers like the Atari 5200 or the Jaguar where all the buttons weren't in easy reach of your fingers.  All the Wii U is missing is a numeric keypad and overlays. 

[mirosurabu]

You won't be using these buttons anyways cause there is this big screen in your hands. Maybe? Or maybe not.

[DavidCaruso]

lol holy shit I just realized the WiiU controller also has a mic.

Mic, touch screen, gyroscope and accelerometer for motion controls, camera, and the "hold up controller to screen" thing too. I really am greatly anticipating games for this console, only to see what kind of trainwrecks can be made as games try to incorporate all of these features. And oh my god imagine playing WiiU Virtual Console games.

Why is the hand repositioning for the Start/Select button such a huge flaw? Won't those just mainly be used to pause the game, in which case you wouldn't need to press any other buttons anyway? The bigger flaw I see is the Game Gear shenanigans going on (except that only had a D-Pad and 2 main buttons).

[AshfordPride]

You won't be using these buttons anyways cause there is this big screen in your hands.

Ah, there's the rub-a-dub-dub.

With a controller, you have a very nice convenience of familiarizing yourself with a layout that translates from game to game.  What I'm trying to say is, you'll always know where the A button is on a controller regardless of if it makes you jump in Game A or if it makes you shoot in Game B.  If the game prompts you to press the A button, you know where it is.

With a touch screen, we're kind of at the mercy of whatever UI the game devs make.  How do we know where we'll decide to put the button to pause the game?  Will it be in the top-right?  Bottom-left?  Upper-middle?  It's a bit of convenience that we'll have to sacrifice, because given a giant screen to work with devs have the potential to make a completely new control layout for each game.

I just want to pause the game.

[AshfordPride]

Why is the hand repositioning for the Start/Select button such a huge flaw? Won't those just mainly be used to pause the game, in which case you wouldn't need to press any other buttons anyway? The bigger flaw I see is the Game Gear shenanigans going on (except that only had a D-Pad and 2 main buttons).

I guess it's not that big of a deal.  I'm sure that the Wii U games will have more than enough buttons to work with.

Something to worry about moreso is how much the controllers are going to cost.  It seems like each one has more tech in it than a DS.  I thought paying sixty dollars for a 360 controller was painful, but, I can only imagine how much purchasing another would cost.  Wait, so, you only use one tablet per console? 

[The Monster King]

that's what they are saying on some interview. like many people have said, it sort of misses the point.

[DavidCaruso]

With a touch screen, we're kind of at the mercy of whatever UI the game devs make.  How do we know where we'll decide to put the button to pause the game?  Will it be in the top-right?  Bottom-left?  Upper-middle?  It's a bit of convenience that we'll have to sacrifice, because given a giant screen to work with devs have the potential to make a completely new control layout for each game.

Before E3, when rumors were going around about the WiiU's touch screen, I was actually thinking this would be a great idea for devs to implement game-specific UIs on the touchscreen, and even let users move around buttons and all to their preference (with a standard default template). But that was when rumors were going around about the controller having extremely good haptic feedback (meaning the biggest problem with touch-screen based systems, the lack of physical response, could be mitigated somewhat), and when I thought the controller would just literally be a compact 5-inch touchscreen and a Home button instead of what we got.

Something to worry about moreso is how much the controllers are going to cost.  It seems like each one has more tech in it than a DS.  I thought paying sixty dollars for a 360 controller was painful, but, I can only imagine how much purchasing another would cost.  

Oh yeah there's some real extreme retardry there too. The controllers will cost as much as the consoles. This is because apparently the controller will not be sold separately from the console. In other words if I want to play multiplayer videogames I either have to buy 4 WiiU consoles or hope that all my friends have a WiiU and can bring their controllers over.

[AshfordPride]

In other words if I want to play multiplayer videogames I either have to buy 4 WiiU consoles or hope that all my friends have a WiiU and can bring their controllers over.

In before some garbage about how the Wii was about 'we' coming together and playing games and the Wii U is about 'you' or something. 

[s0]

Oh yeah there's some real extreme retardry there too. The controllers will cost as much as the consoles. This is because apparently the controller will not be sold separately from the console. In other words if I want to play multiplayer videogames I either have to buy 4 WiiU consoles or hope that all my friends have a WiiU and can bring their controllers over.

You can only use one tablet controller per console, so even that won't help. In local multiplayer, one player uses the tablet and the others use Wiimotes(?).

I think one way it could be improved would be making the screen smaller, reducing the controller approximately the size of a DS (maybe slightly bigger) and of course allowing multiple Wii U controllers in local MP. That'd be like the GBA/Gamecube connectivity thing but done right, which is what I initially thought it was gonna be.

The way it is now, it kinda seems like a jumbled mess of random features whose main point is being flashy and gimmicky and attracting the sort of crowd easily impressed by "trendy" tech gadgets, kinda like the 3DS's 3D feature.

[DavidCaruso]

How to reduce WiiU controller price while retaining the features everyone cares about anyway: remove camera and mic.

Actually uh I'll probably think this is retarded after I finish typing it, but is there any real problem with ditching the gyroscope and accelerometer for backwards compatibility with Wii games and just using stylus strokes across the touch screen in stead of motion control? Swinging around a tablet would look and feel even worse than original Wii.

EDIT: oh yeah the "hold controller up to screen" thing. Though I doubt that really needs as precise equipment as regular motion control.

[s0]

It supports Wiimotes anyway, so no real need. 

[shig]

i'd be a lot more optimistic about this whole controller thing if it were built as part of an arcade cabinet instead of a regular videogame console.

[SirNiko]

My impression of the one-tablet-per-console thing was to precisely get away from having to buy multiple copies to play games. Nintendo got burned on the Zelda Four-Sword debacle for the Wii, since it was a hot game that demanded a huge hardware investment to play. They may be playing it safe, and that's a decision I can understand and support.

Really, though, the smart thing would be to allow the use of a DS as a controller for most games. Virtually every WiiU owner will have at least one, possibly two if they bought a DSi or 3DS, and then if they have a friend come over that makes three. Without the need for those goofy connector cables, you could pretty easily reach the player limit without investing in new hardware, I suspect.

[s0]

They could remove some features from the tablets (like other people suggested) to make them more affordable. I don't see a good reason why they would absolutely NEED cameras or microphones for instance. Or why they couldn't make the screen a bit smaller.

[mirosurabu]

With a controller, you have a very nice convenience of familiarizing yourself with a layout that translates from game to game.  What I'm trying to say is, you'll always know where the A button is on a controller regardless of if it makes you jump in Game A or if it makes you shoot in Game B.  If the game prompts you to press the A button, you know where it is.

Yup, that's a valid concern. Though, PC games don't have standardized layout and PC gamers (both casual and hardcore) get pretty nicely with that.

I don't know.

The way it is now, it kinda seems like a jumbled mess of random features whose main point is being flashy and gimmicky and attracting the sort of crowd easily impressed by "trendy" tech gadgets, kinda like the 3DS's 3D feature.

Sadly, that's how business works.