Monday was a big day at E3 in terms of news announcements with the big two (Microsoft and Sony) going head-to-head with their keynotes, flanked ever so nicely by Ubisoft, Konami  and EA.

But today was all about Nintendo and rightfully so, pushing their keyword “innovation” to the limits, Nintendo revealed their brand new Wii controller (the “Wii U”) to the hungry gaming masses.

At first sight, I honestly wasn’t that impressed but as the demonstration of the Wii U’s capabilities continued, I found myself resorting to muffled sighs of “oh…wow!”

While some of the Wii U’s functionality might only be utilised by gamers who truly adore all-things Nintendo, as a gamer that hardly touches the Wii, I was pretty much sold on the controller by the end of the presentation.

And what’s not to like about the Wii U? Nintendo’s super partnership with publisher EA was definitely a surprise but a good one. Such a partnership will ensure Nintendo’s Wii U will be capable of running games such as Ghost Recon: Online and Battlefield 3 in HD. And that can only be good for gamers who enjoy playing AAA mainstream shooters.

Currently my inbox is absolutely jam-packed with updates on games that will be releasing for the Wii U. I do however, have a few concerns such as how long the battery life will be for the controller and whether or not the output of the controller will be displayed in HD.

While the hardware concept of a truly ‘portable’ console still alludes us, I feel that Nintendo has started to slowly bridge the gap between the current restrictions of our consoles today and the portable console concepts of tomorrow.

Nice one, Nintendo, nice one.

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