#oneaday Day 158: Wii3

More E3 gubbins today, with the big news being Nintendo’s announcement of its new console, the Wii U, which features a controller with a big-ass touchscreen in the middle of it. It looks pretty damn impressive, to be fair, but it remains to be seen whether or not it’ll become just another gimmick for people to deride.

That said, I liked the Wii. It was a good console for social gaming. And I’m not talking about bollocksy “Share This With Your Friends!” Facebook titles — I’m talking about getting together with actual real-life three-dimensional people in the same room and playing fun games. Maybe the Wii’s games weren’t the most hardcore — but have you ever played a “hardcore” game with friends who aren’t particularly up on their gaming? It becomes an exercise in frustration, with experienced players either deliberately having to nerf themselves or the less-experienced ones giving up out of sheer frustration. The Wii knew exactly what its market was, and it tapped it perfectly with the minigame collections and the motion control. Hardcore gaming it was not, but the 360 and PS3 covered that more than adequately, so Nintendo had no need to compete.

Now, though, it’s a different story. Microsoft is wooing the former Wii market with all its Kinect shenanigans and running the risk of alienating the core user base, were it not for platform mainstays such as Call of Duty, Gears of War and the like. Microsoft’s E3 press conference left a lot of gamers frustrated that there wasn’t more for “them” on offer, but Microsoft have seen the success Nintendo had with the Wii and want a piece of that pie — and given the Wii’s dated technology, are perfectly entitled to that.

Nintendo, in response, fight back with a new console that purports to offer the best of both worlds — a casual-friendly console that supports all existing Wii hardware and software that is also a hardcore-friendly console that will see hopefully great versions of big-name games like Batman: Arkham City with the additional benefit of both the world’s biggest VMU (Dreamcast-five!) and the ability to carry on playing whenever your significant other and/or housemate bursts into the room desperate to watch Britain’s Got Desperate People Who Really Want To Be On Television Despite Being Shit and Absolute Cunts. It looks awesome, though a lot will depend on the price of the system — and its crazy controller.

Meanwhile, in PC land, we continue to have the most backward-compatible system in the universe with the cheapest games in the universe (excepting that little games exchange on Zargon Prime, they actually do have the cheapest games in the universe) and consoles start to look just a little bit gimmicky. Possibly.

Oh dear. PC snobbery is starting to infest my brain!