Who says it's information that you have to look at every few seconds?  The screen is best used for secondary information and it's simply a huge convenience.

Say in an RPG, it could be the screen that normally comes up when you press start.  It has detailed character stats, to next level, status effects, magic info, item list, and everything else found in the deep menus without actually to bring up the info screen.

What about a shooter?  Think in games like the new Tomb Raider or Uncharted or Heavy Rain where they try to give you a heavy cinematic experience so they minimize the HUD as much as possible.  They can do that even better now by keep inventory on the touch screen.  Or what about a minimap too?  Suddenly by putting the minimap and inventory on that screen you've cleared up a lot of room and distractions.

And then there's local multiplayer games.  I suddenly have all information I don't want another player to know right at my fingertips and they cannot screen cheat.

What if it were a game like Metal Gear Solid where Otakon (I don't care I misspelled the name) called you and it appeared on that screen while you were still in the environment on the TV?  Think of the instances that could bring where you're under fire while trying to get messages from him or anything like that?

And I saw they mentioned Aliens: Colonial Marines in the Wii U games list.  You're telling me you don't always want the motion sensor at your fingertips?  You're telling me it isn't cooler to actually hold your controller up so you can see the sensor and TV rather than pressing a button to bring it up on screen?

What if I'm playing TF2 and it has match count/progress on there?  What if I can instantly see my stats for the match at any time?  You instantly have that stat tracking that everyone loves in multiplayer games right there at all times.  Who is in the lead, who has the best kill count, what team is winnig, whyo has the highest death count, who is on a killing streak, etc.

The Dreamcast started the fantastic idea with having a screen on your controller and Nintendo has greatly improved it.  The possibilities are endless and simply amazing.  I think the controller is pretty ginormous and I'm worried about the battery life too but it's still awesome to think of the possibilities.

Just because all that info above isn't something that you have to look at every second doesn't mean it isn't important.  It's all important and/or useful information with exciting new ways to get it.

All that stuff doesn't seem worth the cost of a new console and the problems from having a huge controller.

I simply don't think it's exciting to have secondary information slightly more accessible.

Now that seems like a different issue. 

I think if we were talking about the Xbox 360 and then a completely new Xbox 360 with a touch screen controller then you might have a point, but from what I understand the Wii U is like the jump from Xbox to Xbox 360.  So you're not just getting a new controller, you're getting a new console and that's one of the features of the new console.

Now that seems like a different issue. 

I think if we were talking about the Xbox 360 and then a completely new Xbox 360 with a touch screen controller then you might have a point, but from what I understand the Wii U is like the jump from Xbox to Xbox 360.  So you're not just getting a new controller, you're getting a new console and that's one of the features of the new console.