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[Haschel]

I can understand the excuse of "It'll cost us too much money". But saying "it will cost the customer too much money" is just silly. If I want to dish out another $150 for multiple controllers, why are you trying to stop me?. I'm generally an extremely flexible person when it comes to new software, hardware etc, so I don't say this often, but this might be a deal breaker for me.

Unless they make some pretty significant innovations with their game line-up (IE not just another new Mario and Zelda. Hell, I still haven't gotten around to playing the new Wii versions), there's a pretty good chance I might skip this. We'll see how things shape up, I guess... Could be the first non-handheld Nintendo console I've skipped. Ever.

[Aklyon]

There hasn't been a new Wii Zelda, though. just the Gamecube mirrorport and the news of Skyward Sword.

[Sensei]

Could be the first non-handheld Nintendo console I've skipped. Ever.

Does the virtual boy count as a handheld?

[Grakelin]

I can understand the excuse of "It'll cost us too much money". But saying "it will cost the customer too much money" is just silly. If I want to dish out another $150 for multiple controllers, why are you trying to stop me?. I'm generally an extremely flexible person when it comes to new software, hardware etc, so I don't say this often, but this might be a deal breaker for me.

They're trying to meet a perfect balance between supply and demand. When the cost is high, demand goes down. What they're saying is that they don't think they can afford to sell multiple controllers at a price which people will pay for. If they add compatibility for multiple controllers, then games will have to be made for multiple controllers. Since only very wealthy people will have the controllers at that point, the company will lose money not only on the controllers themselves but on the games that support them.

[Akura]

Could be the first non-handheld Nintendo console I've skipped. Ever.

Does the virtual boy count as a handheld?

Haschel, did you seriously buy a Sega Game Gear and an N-Gage?

[Sean Mirrsen]

Game Gear was Nintendo?

[ggamer]

Wow. Uh...

I'm thinking with graphics that gorgeous I could get over "Controller issues" Rather quickly.

All i'm thinking:

"NEW METROID, WHARS IT AT NINTENDA?"

[Jimlad11]

deleted

[Thexor]

Looking at that piece of machinery, I can't help but wonder how expensive it's going to be. A controller with a touch-screen in it? At that size it's almost a DS. The price is gonna be pretty steep.

Does anyone know if Nintendo have said anything about the price yet? Or are they shuffling their feet and looking embarrassed whenever money is mentioned...

Near as I can tell, they're cutting potential features (Blu-ray/DVD support, multiple touchscreen controllers) at a rapid pace in an effort to keep costs down. Hopefully all those cost-cutting measures are worth it!

That said, a touchscreen alone isn't too bad. Remember, the controller has no processing capabilities whatsoever; it's literally just a touchscreen, a few buttons, and a Bluetooth connection. So I wouldn't expect excessively high costs for it. The console itself, meanwhile, is running off tech only slightly higher than the PS3 and 360 - there's no future-proofing involved, near as I can tell, so we're not looking at a high cost there either.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Why do you keep saying the controller has no processing capability? It will definitely have less power than the console itself, but I fully expect it to be able to run things on its lonesome.

After all, if that thing didn't cost a pretty penny they wouldn't be citing cost concerns as the reason for supporting only one per console.

[Thexor]

Why do you keep saying the controller has no processing capability? It will definitely have less power than the console itself, but I fully expect it to be able to run things on its lonesome.

After all, if that thing didn't cost a pretty penny they wouldn't be citing cost concerns as the reason for supporting only one per console.

Now I'm going to have to ask for a source. A quick dig on Google led me to this rundown, where it states outright that the Wii U controller "was not designed to be a portable game machine." You can play without a TV, mind you, but that's just streaming data from the console, not playing sans console.

Moreover, what's the point of including processing power in the controller? If you want a portable game device, you've got the NDS. And adding a processor to the controller when it's hooked up to a modern-generation console would be silly - you're adding a large parallel computing challenge to any program designed for the console.

[breadbocks]

Thexor, remember? They just released that $200 eye-strain machine? The era of the DS is gone.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Why do you keep saying the controller has no processing capability? It will definitely have less power than the console itself, but I fully expect it to be able to run things on its lonesome.

After all, if that thing didn't cost a pretty penny they wouldn't be citing cost concerns as the reason for supporting only one per console.

Now I'm going to have to ask for a source. A quick dig on Google led me to this rundown, where it states outright that the Wii U controller "was not designed to be a portable game machine." You can play without a TV, mind you, but that's just streaming data from the console, not playing sans console.

Moreover, what's the point of including processing power in the controller? If you want a portable game device, you've got the NDS. And adding a processor to the controller when it's hooked up to a modern-generation console would be silly - you're adding a large parallel computing challenge to any program designed for the console.

The point of including processing power in a controller is simple. Lessening the complexity. Not increasing it. I'm guessing that most of the time, the controller will act as an interface extension - be it an inventory screen or something else. Would it not be simpler if the controller could run a simple ROM, downloaded to it at the start of the game, with all interface content? Why stream data back and forth when the controller could, for instance, just tell the console "the player has selected a Healing Potion"? Or in another case, if it's used as a strategic map for an RTS game - why feed actual video of the map to the controller, when you could use just the unit data, and let the controller form its own map, with its own functions for zoom, selecting, etc? I think it makes sense.

[Tilla]

So some shops have started having preorders on their sites. None of this is solid yet but..they're listing a console that is just barely ahead of the 5 year old consoles we already have for $600. Meanwhile, by that time Microsoft and Sony's next-generation offerings will have been announced. Combined with the struggling of the 3DS, did Nintendo just manage to completely blow the lead of both home and handheld console market?

[Shadowlord]

Looks to me like they did: They could've just built a superior console and made it easy to port games to, and instead they chased down another gimmick, except this one's likely going to be expensive and take away from the money that could have gone into the system's performance.