The word of the day from Nintendo was "unique." Satoru Iwata spoke in what was probably the worst PowerPoint presentation I've ever seen. It was all about the Wii U (no name change, unfortunately) and its new, redesigned gamepad — named the Wii U Gamepad. I haven't actually held the Wii U gamepad yet, and hopefully I do so in two days, but it looks huge.
I big feature that was shown off was the analogue stick that can be pressed in for an extra button… because we haven't seen that before. I just can't picture playing a game for a few hours with that huge tablet. I have a baby on the way. With my first son, I could hold him and a controller at the same time. It's how I got my gaming done. With this next child, I don't see how I could do that with the Wii U Gamepad.
Keeping up with the "unique" theme, they showed off how you can used the gamepad as a camera to chat via tv. Also, we saw a bunch of footage we've already seen. Miiverse — which they felt was necessary to explain that it was Mii Universe — was also talked about a bit. WTF is it… a chatroom? It's Xbox Live with notes. That's what it is. I really want to like the Wii U, but Nintendo isn't making it easy. I think their downfall might be that they try to incorporate "Mii" or "Wii" into everything and every name for a feature that they do.
Also, when they have an insanely cheesy video showing a guy talking to a grandpa and his action figure, you kinda lose me. I don't remember the last time I looked up a cheat code. It's like Nintendo just wants to make gaming simpler. There really wasn't a lot of information that got me excited, and the internet — especially Reddit and Twitter — are cracking me up with the comments about how silly this whole E3 announcement was. Let's hope Nintendo has a ton up their sleeve for their actually E3 presentation.
Until then, enjoy a few pictures from the pre-E3 announcment.
The future of gaming. Maybe possibly the face of gaming. Definitely the worst thing I've ever watched.
