And lastly, a touchscreen is way easier to navigate then conventional menus.
Except you have to take your hand off of the controller, pull out the stylus, and then click on the menu in the amount of time any mentally capable person could navigate multiple levels of menus. And while this is going on you have to stop looking at the TV screen. To me it's like selecting letters with a mouse vs. typing.
What would it cost to make a GBA today? There is something pretty fancy with a small screen that is ten years old. If they used GBA level tech would it make such a controller cost feasible?
Of course this touchscreen stuff has brought forth the ideas of the touchscreen replacing buttons, which is such a DUMB idea, but also comes up from people who don't think at all about how that would actually work. The iPad has that. The iPad has **** games. If the Wii 2 had that, it could have all the horsepower in the world, but it would be another casual console because the controller would be completely unuseable for anything with any complexity. With no tactile feedback you have to look down at the screen constantly making any sort of game that involves perfect reflexes or timing a huge mess to play.
This isn't like the DS where you are essentially staring at the touchscreen the whole time because the two screens are right on top of each other. This isn't a minor glance here, it would be moving your head to stare down. And if someone wants to make touchscreen games, why not just make them for the 3DS in the first place?
I'm wondering if Nintendo's plan is to make the iPad to the 3DS's iPhone. So this thing doesn't even connect to a TV and has its own screen but it isn't as portable as a 3DS so it's for around the home. And this thing would become another casual shovelware paradise because it's so different and weird. I would never buy it for all the reason why I hate using handhelds (screen moves with controller, either have to hold controller in front of face or look down the whole time, both of which are ergonomic nightmares).
But if it also allowed TV output I wouldn't mind it too much (still think it would be branded as casual). But then it can't really do local multiplayer without it being incredible expensive, unless Nintendo is smart enough to also offer screenless controllers specifically for if you want to hook it to your TV. But this would involve considerable flexibility and options, which Nintendo is horrible at.
Hopefully this is very conventional and it's just a classic controller with a low quality touchscreen on it with the Wii remote as a seperate option, like how the NES came with normal controllers and the lightgun.