The Wii U gets released

Nintendo want to change the world of video games again and this time they’re trying to bring everyone with them. The DS and Wii opened up gaming to people that never usually played games but the Wii in particular managed to alienate lot of more hardcore players. The new Wii U aims to win them back, while still hanging on to the new audience of grannies, mums and game-haters that the original managed to get on board.

The console itself looks more or less the same as the Wii but the all-important controller was the interesting bit. Completely unlike the Wii remote it’s a huge device almost the size of an iPad, and with a large 6.2” touchscreen built into the front of it. It also retains all the motion controls of the Wii remote, but makes them much more accurate and adds an in-built gyroscope too.

The graphics are also just as capable as the HD consoles, if not more so, but the real appeal of the Wii U is in the way it uses all the features together to create games far more imaginative than the usual dour first person shooter.

Those who used the Wii online are all too familiar with the concept of friend codes. In order to add a friend to your system’s list, you’d have to input their set of 12 numbers, and the only way it would work properly is if your friend did the same with your numbers. Even then, in some cases — like Super Smash Bros. Brawl — you would need to input yet another set of numbers altogether just to play that game with them. The intent was to prevent kids from talking to random, possibly threatening adults, but it seriously hurt the system’s standing with hardcore gamers. The freind codes in the nntendo wiiu have been removed