Nintendo Wii U Pro Controller Joins Wii U GamePad, Miiverse at E3 2012

Written by Matt Swider on June 05, 2012

Wii U Controller News: At E3 2012, Nintendo looks as if it'll finally embrace a standard controller and full online gaming support with Wii U.

The Wii U Pro controller has just been revealed by Nintendo less than 48 before they take the stage for their annual E3 2012 press conference. The design of the pro controller is much more traditional and closely resembles Microsoft's Xbox 360 controller. The major difference between the two is that the Wii U Pro Controller has both sticks up top (similar to how the Wii U tablet is designed) and the buttons are on the bottom right of the controller.

According to VentureBeat Nintendo has also released some new details about their online service, dubbed the ?Miiverse?. While I am not crazy about that name some of the features that Nintendo teased has definitely piqued my interest. Some of these new features include achievements, video chat, hand-written text messages with the Wii U Gamepads stylus and more. Apparently, the ?Miiverse? is natively integrated into every aspect of the Wii U. It would also appear that the ?Miiverse? might not only match XBox Live feature for feature but they might even surpass it in some ways. The example that VentureBeat gave was that instead of simple cross-game voice chat you will receive data from the games themselves. The example given was an overworld screen for a Mario game where players were leaving notes about levels as they go through them. It seems to be similar to what you could do with Demon's Souls, however I haven't had a chance to test out this functionality out for myself yet.

Interestingly enough Nintendo also revealed that the ?Miiverse? will exist on PCs, Macs and smartphones as well. Nintendo didn't go so far as to announce a ?Miiverse? app so it should be interesting to see what they exactly mean. With Nintendo electing to make these announcements prior to the press conference you have to wonder just what they have in store for us on Tuesday morning. Surely they could have waited until then to release these details but perhaps they something even bigger in store for us. Or perhaps this is their attempt to strike first and get people talking before Microsoft or Sony can hold their respective conferences.

What do you think of the new Wii U Pro controller? Are you excited that Nintendo seems to finally be embracing online?