Nintendo’s Wii U is as insane as a microwave on wheels
Seeing Nintendo’s new Wii U console for the first time brought to mind an episode of NBC’s 30 Rock, in which a team of TV producers work through the night to design a new microwave. They come up with a four-door contraption with wheels and twin-mounted cup holders, which, when compared to the Wii U, doesn’t seem that absurd.
I imagine Nintendo’s brain-storming session was identical to this in almost every detail, right down to Alec Baldwin sitting in the corner telling the designers that whatever they come up with should be “as good as the light bulb”.
The Wii U’s control pad, if you can even call it that, looks like a high-tech Etch A Sketch with buttons and a D-pad. It feels like Nintendo travelled back in time, gave someone a rudimentary briefing on the concept of the “games console” and forced them to design one, at gun point.
The first Wii raised eyebrows. This one waits until you’re asleep and shaves them off, then positions its buttocks over your face until you wake up. But Nintendo has form for turning insanity into extremely marketable products (this is, after all, the company that made a generation of children unquestioningly accept the concept of an Italian plumber eating mushrooms and fighting a giant turtle.)
So what do we know about the Wii U? Like its predecessor, the control pad is motion sensitive. The whopping great 6.2 inch touch-screen display in the middle of it can display video independently of what you can see on your TV, giving rise to some fascinating possibilities. It can also be used to play games completely separately from the console, which seems like a slightly odd decision given that Nintendo has just launched a handheld device. Developers say the Wii U’s graphics engine will be at least as powerful as the Xbox 360 and PS3 and indications are it will be available next Spring, giving Nintendo plenty of time to develop a roster of release titles. Unfortunately, the initial reaction has mostly consisted of either: “What the hell is that?” or “It’s called what?”
I’m more optimistic. There is a scene at the end of Apocalypse Now where Marlon Brando’s character, Colonel Walter E Kurtz, recounts a story about the harrowing madness of war. American GIs vaccinate a group of children against polio, only for their parents to hack off the arm of each one and leave them in a big pile. Looking past “the horror” Kurtz sees an insane genius. The Wii U may just be Nintendo’s very own brilliantly insane pile of severed arms.