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Published on June 8th, 2011 | by Jasmine

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Leave Luck to Heaven #17: E3 Coverage – Wii U

The big news this year is obviously the unveiling by Nintendo of Project Cafe, now known as Wii U. Really all that was truly revealed was what the system and controller look like and the demo control schemes.

The most surprising and interesting of these was the virtual space. Because the controller seems to be a game centric iPad, this allows developers to place things off screen that can be viewed with out changing the main camera angle. I especially like this for the golf demo they showed, even though this use seemed entirely for novelty use.

The only true game shown using the controller was Super Mario Bros. Mii. This alone seemed to be a good selling point, since you can leave the TV and still play the game directly on the controller. I am totally sure parents will love this functionality especially.

However, this leads me to the main problem I see coming up with the Wii U. In the Mario demo the kid playing switches from the Wii Remote to the Wii U’s tablet controller. The other demos were either an individual using the tablet or one person on the tablet while anyone else playing was always on the Wii remote. This harkens back to what was said earlier in the presentation, that the system won’t be cheap. In fairness, since it is superior graphics to all current consoles I was expecting this. However, with the only one person using the controller at any given time makes me think the controller alone costs a small fortune. In the case of the Wii, the controllers were expensive enough if you wanted remotes and nunchuks but this may be even more expensive then those two combined.

The graphics that the system showed seemed promising but the price point may be what drives people away. The saving grace to this potential cost issue is that all the Wii’s peripherals will carry over to the new system, so maybe we can save money there. Overall, we won’t know until the price has been announced and even then more games showing the tablet’s real value need to be shown.

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