Nintendo pulled back the curtain on their next console during their E3 2011 presentation. While we already knew most of the details for the Wii U, there was still a sense of mystery about the controller. All the rumors were true, the Wii U's unnamed controller does feature all the buttons and control sticks of a GameCube controller, it does feature a forward facing camera, it does have motion control, and most importantly it has a 6.2 inch touch screen. Once I saw it I didn't need to wait long to hold it.

The Wii U's controller

For the purposes of these impressions I will focus on the Wii U controller, and not on the other improvements the Wii U will offer over its predecessor.

In Your Hands
The Wii U's new controller is a gigantic 6.8 inches wide and 10.5 inches long. At first blush it seems impossibly large to hold. However, once it was in my hands I noticed a few things immediately.

First, there is a well-placed ridge on the back of the controller. This gives a place for the index fingers (above) and middle fingers (below) to rest, and also houses two of the trigger buttons. The ridge makes balancing the controller comfortable. Despite its rather large size my grip felt quite secure even while using motion controls (more on that later) and provided just enough ergonomic support to make holding it comfortable despite the lack of true "grips."

The back ridge

Secondly, the buttons are all easily reached. The two Circle Pads feel slightly taller than the one on the 3DS, but are still much shorter than the standard analog stick. While a stick might preferable in some situations, the low profile of the Circle Pads makes them more easily reached with the thumb, much more so than if they were full sticks. This possibly explains Nintendo's decision to eschew the offset sticks, and instead put them both on the top plane. The lower profile also makes it easy to shift to the D-Pad or face buttons below them. The index fingers naturally rest on the two triggers (L and R). The only reachability issues I had was with the ZL and ZR shoulder buttons, which sit on the top edge of the controller. and the +/- buttons, which are near the center bottom. In the case of the shoulder buttons they can be reached, but it does mean removing one of the index fingers from the stability-providing ridge. For the +/- buttons they will probably not be of use for games where both hands are on the sides of the unit.

The third observation is that the Wii U's controller is shockingly light. The weight was a major concern, given the large size of the unit. However, it actually weighs less than the universally praised Xbox 360 controller. I simply cannot understand how Nintendo managed to pack so many things into such a light unit, but even units that were saddled with video capture devices were comfortably weighted. This means that even holding the controller extended for an AR style game will not cause extra fatigue.

The unit can be held sideways comfortably as well

The Screen
The Wii U's screen is the most important feature of the next Nintendo console, and I was pleased to see how sharp and bright the screen actually is. While it is somewhat less than a "true HD" screen, all the images it displayed looked sharp, featured rich colors, and motion was smooth. Its size dominates the controller and immediately sucks eyes right into it.

Who needs a TV?

The touch screen was, as one would expect from a company that has now created two touch screen systems, very responsive. The slightest tap was enough to register a press. It is disappointing that the screen does not support multi-touch, but Nintendo had already shown that they are planning to stick with single-touch, non-capacitive, touch screen technology on the 3DS so this should not be surprising. There is a stylus stored on the top of the unit that is roughly the same size as the DSi/DSi XL's normal stylus. I don't anticipate it being used much, but Nintendo did show someone using it to draw in some of their B-Reels.

Draw Link is going to be a hard game

The Effect
Nintendo has promised that they are going to revolutionize gaming again with this new controller. We have quite a few impressions of the individual experiences they offered, so for the sake of examining the usefulness of the Wii U's feature set these impressions will be referenced.

The ability for this system to be used in the context of Alternative Reality is immediately apparent in the demo for Shield Pose (see my impressions here). The controller mapped my motions to the "world" astoundingly well. Moving the controller around gave me a window into a world that existed all around me. The built-in gyroscope and motion sensors had no issue mapping the motion with complete accuracy. Ubisoft is experimenting with similar concepts in their game Killer Freaks from Outer Space. At the risk of sounding over-exuberant, the effect completely blows away anything the 3DS has shown.

Shield Pose in action

When just used as a replacement screen, as was demonstrated in New Super Mario Bros. Mii, the screen proved large enough and sharp enough to fill the task. I was able to complete a rather tricky level without ever glancing at the TV. If I had been holding the unit closer to my face it would have been even easier to judge the action.

The "everything but the kitchen sink" approach to control design seems to have awarded developers maximum flexibility. Nintendo showed traditional platformers, AR games, shooters, strategy titles, rhythm games and party titles at E3. All of them seemed to have found a good combination of features. Even the touch screen was well utilized in demos such as Measure Up.

Conclusion
While I didn't get as much time with the Wii U as I would have liked, and the majority of the titles on show being tech demos, I came away from the Wii U impressed. I found the controller fully capable of playing a wide variety of games, more so than the Wii Remote ever was (without the use of assorted dongles). I found the screen to be bright, responsive, and capable of displaying game action as easily as maps and menus. Perhaps most importantly, the controller is comfortable and lightweight.

Until Nintendo is ready to show the Wii U with more full-featured software it will be impossible to judge how close they came to triggering a second revolution. However, I came away excited by the possibilities the new controller represents far more than I was by any upgrade to the graphical and online capabilities of the system and by more than anything else I saw at this E3 or any of the three I've attended.