Hello all. The Nintendo Wii U was fully shown off this E3, and we have for you some specs to feast your eyes for all who are interested.
It will be released this holiday season, ready for Christmas.
The biggest news which has been rumoured but never actually officially announced until now is the ability for players to have two Wii U tablet controllers running simultaneously.
Developers and such before were saying that the console wouldn’t have the power to display 3 seperate displays at once (including the TV) but this has been overthrown. Each device would have the ability to display a completely different view of a game for each player.
Lets first start with the Wii U controller itself, and its features.
It will have a 6.2 inch touch LCD screen with a 16.9 inch aspect ratio (It will come with a pen, though this isn’t needed for direct play)
It will sense movement which will be powered by an accelerometer, gyroscope and a geomagnetic sensor all built into the device.
The accelerometer will accurately be able to determine the speed you are moving the device around, whilst the gyroscope measures the pitch/angle you are putting the device in in all axis.
The geomagnetic sensor will then be able to calculate where you are pointing in terms of direction.
A camera will be able to as seen on our multiverse demo, offer video chat capabilities with a built in microphone also. No doubt the device will also be able to take pictures, and possibly video record too.
A stereo set of speakers will no doubt, like with the mono wii remote speaker, offer some surround sound capabilities if you do not have a surround sound setup, and offer the ability to maybe have video chats/voice chats without the TV on.
Also included will be rumble motors, for added immersion, and a sensor bar.
One of the biggest new features of the new Wii U controller apart from what has already been listed, is NFC (Near Field Communication).
If you have seen the Wii U Rayman Legends demonstration, you will see that the players placed toys on the device and the game reacted.
It was not apparent if this was just wishful thinking, or an actual demonstration.
So what this will allow is for objects with specific codes to talk to the controller offering many possibilities ingame.
It will be powered by a lithium-ion rechargeable battery and will weigh around 500g (1.1 pounds).
Also announced is a new Wii U Pro pad, and is my guess, the replacement of the Wii Classic gamepad.
You can of course play using older Wii pads, and you will still have the ability to connect up to 4 Wii (+ Plus) remote controllers and nunchuks.
Now we can get to the Wii U itself. Before I carry on though; I will mention that the console is backward compatable with Wii games!
The CPU will be based off an IBM multicore unit, but no specific specs have yet been given.
The GPU (graphics processor) will be using an ATI High Definition Radeon chip, but again, no specific specs have been given.
It will support 1080p support however, which was very sought after this time around, and a HDMI socket among the other types.
The sound offering will come in the form of 6 channel digital surround sound, which can be sent as a surround format through HDMI, or through an analog format using the standard outputs.
This is a first for Nintendo which only used to offer Stereo sound, with Dolby Pro-Logic 2 support which turned stereo sound into a multichannel output using external recievers.
The device will feature onboard flash memory, as well as the ability to add external SD cards. No official figures of the devices onboard memory has yet been confirmed however.
Other external features include 4 USB 2.0 connectors, 2 of which are on the front, and 2 of which are on the back of the unit. These will also support Wii LAN adaptors.
A wireless (WiFi) connector will also be inbuilt, offering IEEE 802.11b/g/n support.
The type of discs used have not been specified either, but as it is backward compatable, it does of course play Wii type optical discs.
The device will be approximately 1.8 inches high, 10.5 inches deep and 6.8 inches long, with a weight of around 1.5kg (3.41 pounds).
The Wii U then will be very compact, fitting into living rooms without any unsightly effects.
The Wii U will also be available on launch it seems in both white & black to fit into your TV space better.
That is it for now. Sound off down below.
