Wii U. It’s what happens when a Wii and an iPad love each other very much.

So Lisa is actually AT E3, but that still won't stop me from watching the Nintendo press conference from the 8 million different streaming ways to do so. Of course, the one thing that everyone knew was coming was announced: Mario Kart 3DS! That wasn't it? Um...Star Fox? A Zelda concert tour? OH, right, new console or, as it felt like from the conference, "IT'S A NEW CONTROLLER!!! ohyeahandanewconsoleovertheretoo."

(Photo from Kotaku)

Yes, that's actually the controller. So a good amount of the Cafe rumor craziness was actually true. Shown controller has *deep breath* Two analog nubs (think 3DS nubs), + D-pad, four face buttons, two shoulder buttons, two trigger buttons, a 6.2 inch touch screen, motion control accelerometer and gyroscope, a microphone and a forward facing camera. So basically, you're holding a big DS. The console is also a Slingbox (a concept brilliantly discovered by the venerable Jeff Cannata on twitter), where it can wirelessly send the game you're playing to the screen, allowing you play without a TV. Um...yay? I don't see how often that would be used but thank you. The console will also be backwards compatible with all Wii games and controllers, which was both unknown but probably expected. Also, mysteriously absent was any talk about online play/connectivity, so one can assume that everyone's favorite friend codes will still be omnipresent. One of my favorite aspects of the post-conference Twitter flamethrower was how a large majority of people thought that the controler WAS the console. For all you frantic flameboys, yes, there is a console attached to this.

(Picture also from Kotaku)

Woo. Look at it. Yeah, there's a reason why they didn't focus on this. See, that right there. Not exciting. It's a box. It's white. It looks like if you put a Wii in a lathe or tried to mate it with an 360. As of this writing, full specs aren't out, as everyone is foaming at the mouth to get, but all they'll say is that it'll be 1080P resolution...and that's about it.

To me, this is Nintendo going "Hey Microsoft and Sony. You guys have fun over there. We're gonna play with different people. Oh hai Apple. You wanna play? Let's play." Also, by the complete vagueness of the announcement, I also think someone probably got fired for the initial leak because it doesn't seem like they're quite done with the plans yet and this was supposed to be announced at next year's E3. Speaking of next year, that's when all this is supposed to come out, so the gaming community will have another whole year to speculate and wonder (Read: bitch and moan).