While Nintendo actually started their E3 on Sunday with a Youtube presentation about the changes the company had made to the Wii Game Pad - their keynote speech was actually on Tuesday - we'll round-up everything Ninty announced and give you some insight into Nintendo's next generation console, the Wii U.
The final version of the controller
Speaking in a video presentation from the seventh floor of the conference room in Nintendo's Kyoto HQ, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata gave a 30-minute presentation where he outlined the vision and concept behind the Wii U.
Iwata went to great lengths to explain the philosophy at Nintendo, he said: "I believe when you hear from Nintendo this week, there may be several times when you say to yourself, well, that's certainly something unique".
Iwata also outlined several changes made to the final design of the Wii U's tablet-like controller. He confirmed the inclusion of 2 full analog sticks, he showed off the revised rear of the controller which looked to be a lot more ergonomic alongside the revised button layout.
He also confirmed that Nintendo had decided to include a NFC reader/writer which will be used alongside figures and stickers to enhance gameplay. Iwata also showed off a new feature where the Wii U Pad can become a fully functional TV remote.
Iwata confirmed the Wii U will support existing Wii controls, including the Wiimote, the Nunchuk and the balance board.
Some more details about the Wii Game pad were revealed after Nintendo's keynote - the controller will last between 3-5 hours on one charge and will require 2 hours to charge back to full - it sounds very similar to what you get with the Vita.
Nintendo CEO of America did confirm that the new Wii U will now work with two Wii U Game pads - there's no indication of how much a new controller would cost - but we'd speculate its going to be around £60-80 considering it's essentially a tablet.
Mii Universe
Nintendo President Satoru Iwata also showed off a new online component called "Mii Universe" - it's a new online feature for the Wii U and looks a lot like a much expanded version of the Wii's Mii Plaza feature and PS Vita's Near. It brings together the openness of Twitter with gaming social aspects of Xbox Live that looks to finally bring gamers together and out of the comfort of party chat.
Of all the features Nintendo showed off – this has to the most well realised – it allows users to post little messages about games and places where you might have got stuck – it’s a new slant on a open, collaborative social network – and looks like a unique selling point.
The plaza will show Mii characters gathered around games and features a messaging system for players to connect with players they both do and do not know.
Miiverse will also inhabit the 3DS and mobile devices (Android, iOS) in the future, though it will not be available immediately at launch.
He also announced a brand-new controller called the WIi U Pro Pad - this is essentially a Nintendo clone of the Xbox 360 controller, with dual analogs sticks and identical button layout - he explained it is aimed at core multi-format games. If the main Gamepad is so good and been designed to work for all games why announce another gamepad? Unless the tablet controller is quite pricey, and a cheaper alternative is needed.
Nintendo had a great opportunity to make their case for why the Wii U is a revolution in gaming - instead of focusing too much on hardware it was mainly a software-focussed keynote. Some of the brandnew games that were on show included Pikimin, a new Mario game and a host of ports of third party games.
While everyone loves Mario, you couldn’t help but think that Mario Wii U wasn't what many had expexted. It's not the next-gen sequel to Mario 64 we wanted, but a classic 2D Mario platformer. Now, this might not sound exciting, and to be honest it wasn't - it looked nice enough, but you couldn’t help but think Miyamoto could have knocked the game up in a matter of weeks.
Whatever you think about Mario Wii U it certainly wasn't the triple-A title many had expected - in fact we'd be very surprised if it was a full retail title either – it comes across a something more akin to a downloadable title.
In fact we'd go as far as saying that none of the first party titles had the wow factor you'd expect from Nintendo - there was no Zelda, no Metroid, no Pilot Wings - basically if you're looking for next-gen Nintendo titles then they were not on offer, yet.
Nintendo had a massive opportunity to really enage with gamers and get them excited about the next Wii U console - instead many are wondering is the launch line-up as good a previous Nintendo consoles? How much is the console going to be? When will the console be released?
While they did answer a lot of questions from last year's hardware unveil, you can't help but think that the core games needed to shift a console at release aren’t there yet - it might be that the big guns are announced a little nearer to the launch at Gamescom and TGS.
Nintendo did, however, show off a decent selection of third party titles including a port Mass Effect, Assasins Creed 3, Aliens and new Just dance game.
Another missed opportunity
On the face of it Nintendo have missed a massive opportunity to really sell the Wii U to weary gamers – last year it was all about Nintendo going after core gamers – but this year they managed to confused them more than they persuaded them. It’s as if Nintendo are trying to satisfy both and didn’t really achieve in persuading either.
There’s no doubt that the Nintendo Wii U is a massive step in the right direction, but with a real lack of killer games it’s hard to see what games are going to shift the console in the early months – we need a price, a release date, and at least 5 triple-A first party titles for the Wii U to be a early success – but until we get there, there’s still a massive question mark over the Wii U.
Only time will tell if Nintendo manages to present the console in a manner that will really capture gamers’ imaginations. After two E3 presentations, Nintendo, for whatever reason, has failed to really capture the imagination of all the older Ninety fans who are just looking for a reason to make the next console purchase a Nintendo one, at the moment they’re still searching for that reason.