I wasn't happy about Wii U at first, just like many people.

But then I thought about it.

Wii U takes everything that made the DS special and takes it to the home console. It allows touchscreen secondary screen gameplay, and I guarantee you players will find that a lot more entertaining than many people are originally thinking.

Nintendo consulted third-parties while developing this console. It's a known fact that third parties loved developing for the DS, and mostly because the second screen with touch-capabilities gave a plethora of unique functions. With the DS's abilities carried over, it gives devs the ability to use those features here. The options are practically endless there.

As a consumer, it's probably going to be more expensive than most would like if you want to upgrade to multiple players. However, for Nintendo separating the Wii U experience from that of Microsoft and Sony's systems, it's a far better strategy than Wii. With the Wii, it may have taken a few years for the competition to get their piece of the blue ocean pie, but they still did it and it didn't require anything too fancy. In Wii U's case, it's a different story. The consoles would  almost certainly HAVE to have an adapter for "to the controller" video output, and it'd be a lot more expensive in the end. No, I'm going to say Sony and Microsoft steer clear and try a different strategy next time around, and videogaming experiences are going to begin diverging as a result. Nintendo's going to get to enjoy having a more unique market now, similar to how the DS and PSP had uniquely different experiences. Hopefully, for gaming's sake, developers see the benefits behind both like they mostly did with DS and PSP.

Given that the PS Vita isn't going to be a "take it anywhere with you"-type portable handheld experience like 3DS, I also see the two of those marketing to significantly different crews, even if they only have minorly different capabilities with gaming.

However, if Nintendo makes it possible to utilize the Wii U from anywhere within the wireless range (witihn-the-household handheld), or even makes it so the system can allow multitasking (for instance, one person uses it to play a game at the TV, another uses it to play a VC game on the controller, and another uses it to watch Netflix from the next room), it will successfully manage to compete at least partially with PS Vita. It will also have direct competition with the iPad (though it'll almost certainly compete with that directly anyways).

Finally, I can see Nintendo possibly releasing a special upgraded controller that CAN operate as a portable handheld tablet and has its own storage and processing. Heck, we don't know much about these controllers - it's possible they already do a lot of the processing anyways (it's clear they already do at least SOME).

Gaming with this is going to be fantastic. Purchasing it is one of my initial concerns. If the system's expensive, and the controllers are probably expensive, then it may be some time before I pick this one up.  But it looks like they're doing things right with third parties, and that's where the battle this generation is going to be. Third-party support is absolutely necessary. Nintendo will be able to bring out all sorts of A-game, but they NEED quality third-party support. And with what will be eight years of secondary-touchscreen development under their belts, devs know exactly what they can do with this. The third-party support will be a lot better this time.

I want to see more of it, because they didn't really show us what it's capable of. they just kind of hinted at it.

Exactly what this guy said. 

haven't seen conference, btu a few vids so far so i'm limited, but here are my initial thoughts on what NEAT things it can do.

1. saw a vid with the controller hooked up on a gun. imagine four player shooters with each person having their screen on their controller. sorry sony, your split screen with glasses on just got trumped.

2. really hoping it has nice media features. controlling the tv and netflix and so on using a touch screen would be really nice. Regardless hoping all games have thier menus on this thing. so much easier to just click than to have to scroll or POINT as wiimote did.

3. FLAWLESS SCREENS. take any game, what clutters up the tv, random health meters. mana meters, ammo remaining, gun equiped, ect. All those things woudl be removed and down onto the controller. no more huds on the screen and thus purely 1080 pretty game to watch.

4. i loved the whole play the game while watching tv. some games i'm fine not having on the huge tv and this is essentially a PIP, but better. i mean you can play your games on tv, and then say someone comes and wants to watch tv so you let them while you continue playing on your controller. Sure i might not want to do that for some games, but many i'm sure i'll be fine.

5. NO MORE PAUSING. with a menu at the ready at all times, there shoudl be no needs to ever pause and cycle through inventory and so on to equip. it can all be done while still playing. i hate in games like ocarina of time or resident evil 4 and many others having to go into menu to select stuff.

6. dragon age, witcher and other rpgs. bam no more, more buttons on pc. no more RADIAL menu to select shit. you could have like 50 buttons on the touchscreen to do stuff.

Well, if you guys recall, with the initial Wii reveal, they didn't give much information - they just presented enough to get people talking.

I do think it's far too early to say it's not more powerful than PS360, though. Developers haven't had much time with the new system to create new stuff. Everything that's been shown on it, I expect will look noticeably better at release. How much better is the question. After seeing some of the things that devs are working on with the 360 and PS3 recently, I don't think there's much more you can do. Most of the improvements from next generation on won't be improving visuals but making it easier to make good visuals.

I do know one thing, though - it IS at least a marginal improvement over this generation, and if it's only marginal, combining that with the fact that it's going to be out for a good year first, it'll surely be able to sit at a good price-point.

It's like the guy said in the conference, the Wii U controller is the Swiss Army Knife of controllers. I love all the amount of options that are present, and I'm even more excited to see how devs will use them in their games. ^_^

If it's the Swiss Army Knife of controllers, can it play a game like Metroid Prime 3 without having to aim with analog stick (or slider, pad or whatever they're calling it)?

Some of the points you guys make are interesting.

I'd like to see a RTS game...

I suppose they could use the touch screen as the aiming reticule, but you're right in that the lack of a IR pointer in the controller is a bummer. But with the console also supporting the WiiMote... there's no telling what they could do.

Now we have to wait another year to find out...

They could also mod in an IR camera before launching.