Surprisingly, it's not as awkward as it looks. I didn't play a motion demo, but from holding the controller and waving it around, it wasn't terrible. It's a lot lighter then you expect, though without a different controller to directly compare to at the time, it's hard to describe how it compares to playing with a 360/PS3 controller for a few hours. Does the motion type games really appeal to me? No, but I don't see the new controller being a hinderance for adoption for those who like the current Wii stuff.

Graphics wise, it was pretty impressive. The particular demo I got was the "HD Experience" one showing a scene using Link. It wasn't a game, and the controller was simply allowing me to move the camera around as it went through an on rails demo. It is definitely ahead of the 360/PS3 (as it should be this far out), and seemed to be pushing the 1080p screen, along with the one on the controller just fine.


They wouldn't really confirm anything in the way of specs, but I personally don't expect BluRay movie playback. Not even sure if it's going to use anything beyond DVDs for storage, though I hope it has something bigger. No price news either, but I din't think they are too worried about competing with the 2005 era consoles, just as Microsoft probably wasn't too worried about the price of the PS2 when the Xbox 360 launched. The new controller also does have some design decisions clearly made to keep the cost down. It's a resistive touchscreen, and only supports one touch point. It's not an HD screen either. No demo had the camera in use, but I'm betting it's similarly low end.

The controller is included, and won't be sold separately. They are investigating allowing a 3DS to work as another controller, and also working to decide how to handle more then one "new controller" on the system if someone were to bring theirs over to a friends house. From the keynote, additional players can use the current Wii controllers.

What has me most excited are the new Zelda and Mario Kart games. If you're able to get your hands on those, I'd love to hear about them...[/quote]
No games for the WiiU were there, it was all just tech demos. I wouldn't even count on a Zelda title early in the WiiU's life, as the Wii is just now getting it's proper Zelda title. (Twilight Princess was a Gamecube game with some Wii stuff bolted on, vs a game targeted for the Wii only and it's capabilities). I did play the Ocarina of Time 3DS game a bit, and it's a decent adaptation of the Nintendo 64 version. They added some motion controls to it for things like aiming the slingshot, but it's not mandatory to use.