First Look of Wii U

With less than two weeks remaining until the Wii U arrives here in the U.S., Nintendo has finally delivered hardware to the press for review purposes. At this point, you've probably decided whether or not you're planning to pick up one of these new consoles at launch, but we know a lot of people are curious about the system. So we've decided to go old-school by posting a simple photo gallery of the hardware, the games, and their packaging. Wondering about the Wii U? We can't answer all your questions, but hopefully this satisfies a little of your curiosity.

We haven't had a chance to make proper use of the Pro Controller yet (read: Playing a game), but our initial "hold it and see how it feels" test has yielded mixed results. I'm a big fan of the way it sits in the hand, while Jose Otero feels the right analog stick is much too close to the face buttons. Relevant to this discussion: I have small hands, Jose has huge mitts. I can see the potential for clumsiness in the heat of action, but I don't think it will be an issue. We'll see!

Up close and personal with a Wii U retail game box. It's... a retail game box. Standard Amaray DVD case (the flimsy "environmentally friendly" type with the big chunks missing from the front and back panels) in a sort of sea blue. The Blue Ocean strategy given physical form at last, perhaps? The system branding is pretty discreet, with a yellow-rimmed semi-circle at the top and a simply "Nintendo Network" badge to denote its online connectivity. Yep.

The back of the box is as sloppy and information-dense as the front is sparse.

A peek inside Mario's trilingual manual. It's full color, as befits a new console's flagship title. And each language has about... um, eight pages of content. Oh well. Still, beats all those Vita and 360 games that ship with no manuals at all. Anyway, this spread shows off basic controls and, more importantly, the Super Mario World-style overworld.

Inside the box: The game disc, the manual, the inserts, and gigantic missing chunks of plastic with no cool reversible art showing through. Do we expect box liners to feature that reversible art in other regions? Yes we do. Nintendo of America is frugal about the weirdest things.

A second look at the system and game boxes, as demonstrated by our lovely model, Jose. Jose's a tall guy, so you can get a sense for the size of the Wii U box from this image -- it's larger than you might expect, and surprisingly heavy.

Not a cubic inch of the box has gone to waste, though, which probably accounts for its density. The box interior breaks out into two separate trays, one for the console and touch pad screen thing, the other for the startling array of cables and connectors. The second tray also includes manuals and -- for the deluxe system -- NintendoLand, which ships as a packaged retail title rather than a digital release preloaded on the system.

You can't tell from this shot, but a seemingly standard Wii Sensor Bar comes included in this package. Once assembled, the Wii U is almost as tangled and complicated as a Sega Genesis hooked up to a Sega CD and 32X. A modern day Tower of Power, as it were.

The hardware from the front, side by side with the original Wii model. As you can see, its profile is almost exactly the same height as the Wii's. The systems are approximately as wide as one another as well.

The Wii looks wider here than the newer system, but that's because lens distortion turns consumer-level cameras into liars; they're actually the same width. Of note: The Wii U here is still wrapped in its protective plastic around the edges, but the upper panel is mostly bare. Look at how reflective it is! You can see the ductwork on the ceiling. And after touching it, you will see so, so many fingerprints. You can also see that the Wii U is larger than the Wii, being roughly two inches longer than its predecessor. Please feel free to refrain from obvious jokes correlating length and color; I'm sorry to report they've all been made and are no longer clever.

Comparing the right-side panels (which become the bottom panels when the systems are flipped vertically) reveals an interesting difference. Both feature vents here to allow air to circulate up through the innards, of course. But where the Wii had four small padded feet to hold the system upright, the Wii U has two rounded tabs that can't possibly support the machine.

Instead, these tabs slot into a pair of small stands that hold the system in a more stable fashion than the Wii's little pads did. Presumably, they can also be lost more easily, but maybe that's just me being an alarmist.

Pay no attention to the man in the reflection. Seriously, everyone, that black plastic is glossy.

The systems' front panels are largely similar, with the main differences being that the Wii U features two USB ports (the better to plug in a keyboard for playing Dragon Quest X, he said hopefully) and its sync button has been relocated outside of the flip-down panel for convenience. Otherwise, it works about the same: Slot-loading disc drive, flip-down port cover protecting an SD card slot (though the Wii U's is better designed, sliding into the case housing to prevent it from snapping off).

The consoles' backs are even more similar than their front sides, with the Wii's configuration of elements almost perfectly duplicated on the Wii U. The biggest change, of course, is the inclusion of an HDMI port on the new machine. High-definition graphics, kids! Nintendo's finally part of the current gen.

Something interesting is that the Wii and Wii U appear to use the same A/C adapter port, but in fact they don't: Despite the similar size and configuration, the 45-degree notch is on opposite sides, creating a physical lockout to prevent mixups. This is important, because the Wii was insanely energy efficient and the Wii U reputedly uses considerably more juice (though still much less than other current consoles and PCs). Certainly its A/C adapter brick is much larger than the Wii's.

The systems' left sides, which become the consoles' top panels when vertically oriented, offer the most significant physical difference between Wii and Wii U. The older system offered backward compatibility with GameCube software, controllers, and memory cards, so the top panels opened to reveal several ports to enable older hardware compatibility. The Wii U drops its support for GameCube (it's strictly backward compatible with Wii games), so it no longer needs these vestigial bits.

This thing comes with a raftload of cables, as I mentioned before. As much as Nintendo borrows from Apple, here's one place the two companies diverge quite radically; where Apple packaging and setup is simple and elegant as can be, the Wii U seems like a bit of a mess. The tablet controller is largely responsible for the increase, of course. It recharges with a USB cable, comes with both a simple stand and a docking cradle, and generally complicates the package. Will it pay off? We're curious to find out.

The most important page of the system's massive manual: How do we transfer Wii data to Wii U? I have a ridiculous amount of Virtual Console and Wii games that I don't want to part with, so you'd better believe I flipped immediately to this section. The process looks similar to the DSi-to-3DS transfer system, though being forced to share a TV between two different console could complicate matters. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to test the process yet (the requisite system software won't be available for a little while longer -- possibly launch day), but expect some in-depth coverage once the option becomes available.

Of course, the big selling point for the Wii U is the game pad, which we've written and talked about in fair detail already. The big surprise for me personally was that the pad isn't tethered to the console. That makes sense, of course, but I've demoed the system a couple dozen times over the past 18 months and the tablet has always been attached to the machine with a thick cable for security and prototype purposes. Being able to hold it separately and independently makes the entire idea of playing Wii U a lot more appealing in a way I never really expected.

And not that I need to say it again, but this shiny black handheld device is doomed to be smeared with fingerprints in a matter of minutes.

A closer look at the game pad docked in the charging cradle. You can see where it plugs in to external power, which is adjacent to the somewhat strangely placed headphone jack. You can see the paired shoulder triggers, which are placed somewhat far apart. This makes sense given the ergonomics of the tablet: Because it's larger and bulkier than a standard controller, you end up holding it more loosely than a typical game pad. The space between the triggers is therefore much more comfortable than if they were bunched together.

A finally, a reverse angle of the pad's back. The volume slider works for both headphones and the integral speaker on the tablet. You can also see the stylus, which appears to be effectively identical to the DSi XL stylus. I can't say for certain because my XL's stylus recently vanished.

So this is what the packaging and hardware look like. Again, we can't show off the system software and operational functionality just yet, but it's nice to have the hardware in hand and get a sense of it without all the dongles and cables and eagle-eyed PR watchmen hovering over us. Wii U launches in the U.S. in 11 days, and you can expect a ton of coverage next week as we say farewell to the Wii and make way for its successor in our next 1UP cover story.

So that's what we have for now. Got any questions about the Wii U? Ask us! We'll respond here to the extent we're able and allowed -- which, admittedly, is fairly limited for the moment. Seems Mr. Iwata doesn't want to be beaten to the punch when it comes to showing off his company's shiny, shiny new toy.

By Jeremy Parish, 11/07/2012
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