New console comin'...

EDIT:

oh yeah,
e3.nintendo.com

Live blogged at arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/06/nintendos-e3-press-conference-liveblog.ars

Update so far:

new Zelda games for Wii, DSi, and 3DS. No mention of a Zelda game for Project Cafe (they haven't announced the new platform yet).

new Zelda soundtrack CDs, an orchestral Zelda tour announced.

New 3DS content announced, based on venerable franchises:

Mario Kart
Starfox64 3D
Super Mario
Kid Icarus: Uprising
Luigi's Mansion 2

Lots of 3rd party games for 3DS, some of them available through the Nintendo eShop.

Virtual Console for old GameBoy and GameBoy colour titles on 3DS.
Some of these old games will be 3D-ized.

New console is called Wii^U (we-you).

Controller has a touchscreen, as widely predicted. Does not look like the allegedly leaked photos, though.

Controller looks like a tablet computer. Images are rendered on the console and transmitted wirelessly to the controller. Controller is not a mobile device. Can play games or do Wii Fit even without a TV. Pen input is supported.

Video calls through controller's builtin camera, mic, and speakers. Accelerometer, gyro, and rumble function built in.

Shuriken demo is shit-hot!!

Can browse web on TV, read text on controller.

Wii accessories still work with new system.
Smash Brothers for new system and 3DS will work together.

The screen is 6.2 inches. No word on how much it weighs, or battery life.

Judging from the demos, they are keen on asymmetrical gaming, where one player has a touchpad controller, and the other players have Wii remotes. The touchpad player gets a bird's eye view of the scene, in addition to the conventional view on the TV. This supports many-against-one style games (think Scotland Yard, except as a Wii game). Is this a hint that they don't expect consumers to buy lots of extra touchpad controllers? What will these things cost?

3rd party developers like EA and Rocksteady will support the new platform (so Arkham City will be available).

What they haven't mentioned:

3D gaming on the Wii^U. I assume that means it's not supported.
Tech specs on the console processor.
The brand name of the controller (they just keep calling it "the new controller").
Console capabilities like HDMI ports (I assume there will be at least one, but they didn't say so).
Any kind of new online service to support this platform.
Pricing information for either the controller or the console.
How 3DS will work together with the console.
Release date.

Juniper wrote:


Back during the GameCube days, when Nintendo was smoking the "connectivity" pipe, there was a Pac-man game where one player would basically just play Pac-Man on a GBA while the three other players would play as ghosts on the TV, but with severely limited vision so that they had to work together to corner Pac-Man. I assume this is the type of game you're talking about. That sounds awesome since I loved the shit out of that game, but since the GBA-GameCube connectivity never whent anywhere (it was a stupid idea), hopefully this means that cool ideas like that will be back.

My only worry now is the price of these damned controllers, but it's reassuring to hear that they aren't meant to be some sort of tablet-lite.

This article also mentions Pacman Vs. on Gamecube as an analogy to the new control scheme.

www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/06/07/i-39-ve-played-nintendo-39-s-new-hd-console.aspx

I've been assuming that it's possible to connect two, three, or four of the new controllers to a single console, just like you could a Wii remote, but I reflected on this a bit and realized it's not necessarily true. The console renders the graphics for the touchscreen, so the console's graphics hardware would need additional circuitry (separate render buffers, for example) for each supported controller, or else the frame rate on the main screen would drop. Nintendo could provide graphics processing for 5 separate displays (one HD TV, four SD controllers) in the console, but that might be costly.

I think maybe you'll just get the one touchscreen controller, and that's it -- additional controllers will be Wii remotes. Nintendo didn't demo any games in which two or more of the touchscreen controllers are used simultaneously, so maybe that's not a supported configuration.

It's possible that Nintendo hasn't yet decided which configurations will be supported, since such a decision will be based on manufacturing costs, which are yet to be determined.

My guess is the tech in the controller will be fairly minimal. A touch screen and low end graphics processor. It's not intended to be a standalone device, so all the heavy lifting will be done by the console and slung to the controller. Probably $50ish - $100 at the outside.