Or was it another device?

...

Left: Wii U announcement controller. Right: Wii U released controller.

Something that has been flying into my head since release, is this. Is the Wii U we play the same device announced at E3 2011?

The first thing that pops in my mind when I see the E3 2011 trailer is "cool, they are going to release their own iPad/tablet, next Nintendo device focused on its controller". But now that I look at the console in my room I see another console, not a tablet device with the Nintendo logo in it.

One of the things we can see, is how the original controller looked more like a tablet than a controler, it didn't have even proper sticks.

The demo of The Legend of Zelda on Wii U make the crowd go wild.

At that time we can only speculate maybe some minor tweaks to the controller, like smaller sides that could give the perception of a bigger screen, a lot of screen usage like video calls and interactive gameplay. One of the first features we saw was the off-tv play, one of the best usages of the Gamepad, but can we draw the Link model in the trailer or play simple games on the pad solely at launch?

Videocalls was supposed to be a big feature

On top of that, let's move to something that made the crowd said: that's cool. A new Wii Sports game. In the baseball game, you use the Gamepad for both sides, to throw a ball or to use the bat.

You also have to catch the ball

Or what about a golf game like this:

Put in the floor, it will show you where you are standing

Aren't those interesting concepts?

But going forward, do you remember all those games with the zapper? Yeah, me neither...

Another ignored Wii U feature

Apple TV was also something we though instantly when we saw how a misterious hand shared the youtube content from his/her gamepad to the TV:

You now enjoy this with a cutie courtain and a kiddy effect.

I have to be honest and say: to me E3 2011 Wii U is not the same one released. The device they showed at E3 was a multifunctional hardware with a tablet style that can appeal to many people. Unfortunately, the released concept was more like a traditional console that lacks many features and without exciting software to play.

While in the coming months we got Wii Sports Club, is not what we imagined compared to the trailer. Not many games to play solely with the pad, not a lot of draws, videocalls, browser is not as exciting.

So in conclusion, Wii U is not the interactive device they showed us at E3 2011

What do you think?

It'd be odd because they would've announced the NX exists in 2015, then reveal it 2016 then launch it 2017.

Just doesn't seem wise to me, they kinda did that with the Wii but I just feel the NX needs to come as soon as.

So many cool things they could've done :(

Yeah, I remember seeing those clips where they showed golf and the Wii Zapper, and thought it was cool as hell.

I wonder why they never did any of these things. :/

I expect to be announced and released in 2016 and they will show the final model.

Me too. I though Wii Sports HD using the gamepad in that way was very cool and will be good for the Wii Remote.

Can't the GamePad do all of those things that you mentioned, though? It's not that the Wii U isn't the device they announced, it's that Nintendo barely focused on many of the features the Wii U had, and to be honest, can you blame them? I mean seriously, who the hell wants to use the damn GamePad to make a video call when I can make one on my phone in about 2 seconds? I also don't want to have to put my controller on the floor when I'm playing a game, that's just absurd. It's a good thing that they added real analog sticks rather than circle pads, that would've been disastrous. The only thing showcased above that I think is potentially cool is placing the GamePad on the zapper for playing a shooter. Would've been hard to come up with a practical functionality for that, however.

Then they must have not showed all those features if they didn't plan to support.

I thought it was a "why do people think NX will be annoucnced and released in the same year' thread. My bad xD

Just a prototype of the gamepad right?

But it shows they orginally wanted the gamepad to be thinner and lighter in weight than the current gamepad is.

Perphaps the NX gamepad is more like their orginal vision for it.

I agree. They shouldn't have shown all of that. But then again, they shouldn't have even made the Wii U in the first place. Everything about this gen for Nintendo is just so dumb...