Reggie went on stage and told the E3 audience that many felt the hardcore folks weren't being catered to by Nintendo. This is something they wanted to change with the new system, so they created a system for "you", meaning the audience he was speaking to at the presentation consisting mostly of hardcore gamers. We're so confident this system will appeal to you, he said, that we're even putting it in the name. So, that in a nutshell is how they explained away the reason behind the U.
But if U is supposed to mean hardcore gamers, what does Wii mean? Originally it meant us, or everyone, playing together, right? Well, no, apparently. It must have meant something distinct from hardcore gamers, or at least now it does, so that must translate to the casual crowd. Forget what you learned in English class about the meaning of the word "we", it does not include everyone plus yourself, so now they have to put "U" in the name so you're given proper representation.
Throwing logic out the window, we're left with more intangible reasoning for the name. Yes it carries the Wii brand with it, and yes it's just silly enough to stick with people, though it will be somewhat difficult to distinguish for many consumers, since it doesn't clearly separate itself as something new and totally different from the Wii, and this is exasperated by the fact that the system looks very similar to the Wii, and the controller can even interface with some of the Wii accessories and software. But Nintendo considers it an evolution from the Wii anyway, so to them, the name fits.
The controller is very unique, for sure. It got the brunt of the attention from Nintendo's Wii U announcement, and for good reason. They want it to be the defining feature of the system, the thing that makes it stand out from the pack even if all other features don't. The system itself wasn't important. Reggie even called it "just a box with a GPU and a CPU". To Nintendo, the console itself doesn't matter, specs don't matter, HD graphics is just a check mark on the list. The controller is what's special, and that's significant to note, because if games from third party developers are just copy/paste jobs from other platforms, the controller can at least give them some sort of edge even if it doesn't offer much extra functionality. It can add convenience in games that would have otherwise required the action to pause while accessing a menu, or clear up some space on the TV that the HUD would have taken up. For hardcore gamers, it's a dual analog controller that will give you that familiarity and precision necessary for more traditional games, although it remains to be seen if the bulk of the device might pose an issue. For games that truly take advantage of it, some very innovative ideas can be played around with. Nintendo's most important job at E3 was selling people on the controller, and they spent a lot of time trying to do that. Personally, I'm not there yet, but I see the potential for a lot of interesting and unique concepts that can, at the very least, be more useful than motion controls were.
Very little else was talked about. Online will be disclosed in greater detail later on, but supposedly, just like HD graphics, it's just a check off the list, something that's now "granted". Features will be supposedly comparable to current-gen consoles, but is Nintendo taking it seriously enough? Are they the ones just taking it for "granted"? One of the important aspects of the new console mentioned was for there to be a strong connection between you, your TV, and the internet. The rumor was that they went to a outside company for help setting up their online support, and that could certainly be true, but what is certain is that Nintendo is taking it more seriously than previous generations, and that's good. A unique advantage in that realm would be a boon for them, but if they just consider it a bullet point on their feature set, that may be too much to expect.
The only other thing to talk about is timing. In my previous rambling, I mentioned that it seemed like Nintendo was quite content doing things cheaply and making loads of money off the casual market, with no real incentive to change. I'm glad they decided in the end to get back to the hardcore crowd and try to win back third party developer support. I think that's a major plus of this whole announcement, but the question is, will it be enough? If performance is only slightly above current-gen consoles, and not considered an important aspect of their new platform, will simply having those ports as opposed to not having them be sufficient to woo the more serious gamers back to their side? These same people likely bought one or both of the two current-gen consoles already, and have enjoyed those types of games for several years now. What's the incentive for them to make the move to a new platform that just offers more of the same? In an interview with Reggie Fils-Aime, the NOA CEO stated that their distinguishing feature will be first-party games, with the rest being left to the developers to provide whatever benefits they feel necessary. Obviously Nintendo's approach is very hands-off when it comes to third-party devs, and the problem is that if they aren't aggressive about getting unique advantages put into their games, then the Wii U may end up no better than its predecessor at getting that audience to take them seriously again. All this is important because, again, there's a timing issue here. Nintendo's got a little bit a lead with releasing new hardware, but the clock is ticking on how long they'll be able to run unopposed before the other big boys get the ball rolling on their next generation. Of course, this announcement might very well put a fire under their asses, and Nintendo won't have very long to win back the true gamers before some much meatier competition lands on their lap.
