14 DAY TRIAL // The E3 2011 Nintendo press conference focused so much on the new controller, especially its new touch screen, that a lot of gamers thought that the company had a kind of new tablet in the Wii U.
The company has since then talked about its new console in its entirety and has offered details on the expected performance and how the controller will interact with it and at least one of Nintendo's leaders believes that the very existence of the new controller makes the new console more attractive to the core gaming crowd.
Satoru Iwata, who is the president of Nintendo, told a number of investors that after the launch of the Nintendo Wii and its new motion tracking controller a number of players were put off and decided not to pick up the new technology because they preferred the familiarity and the comfort of their gamepads.
This drove them to pick up the Xbox 360 from Microsoft or the PlayStation 3 from Sony and deprived the Wii of a lot of sales.
The new Wii U controller includes a touch screen mounted centrally and also has analog controls and incorporated motion tracking.
It shares a lot of features with the standard pads used to play on the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.
The new controller, combined with the addition of support for High Definition graphics on the Wii U, will also draw in developers who create first person shooters, which should also rise the profile the device has in the more hardcore customer group.
Iwata has also said that a number of Japanese developers who saw the Zelda themed demo for the Wii U shown at E3 were impressed with the way it was built.
The executive says the short demo was created quickly and with minimal effort, meaning that it will be easy for developers to create video games for the new home console.