A new patent, reported on by Nintendo Life, shows one idea Nintendo has for their upcoming Wii U console, in which you can drag a person from the main screen to the touch screen.  The patent illustrations show a stick figure on the TV, under attack by aliens, being dragged by the Wii remote into the safe confines of the Wii U remote touch screen.

It's a cute idea, although I'm not sure how well it would work.  It just looks like a pain to have to set your Wii U remote up on a table so you can do this.  But the idea of the touch screen as a sort of box you can drag things into is an interesting one.

The important thing, though, is it shows how the Wii remote can interact with the TV and the Wii U remote in interesting ways.

In an interview with Gamespot, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford unequivocally stated that the best-looking version of Gearbox's upcoming Aliens: Colonial Marines will be on the Wii.  He also declared that the Wii U controller is  the "best controller I've ever had from Nintendo for a hardcore first-person shooter."

While there has been a lot of debate on how powerful the Wii U will be, and whether it can be considered a next-gen console at all, Pitchford says it is clearly next-gen, and says that, since "the Wii U is a more powerful machine, [if]  you've got the disposable income ... maybe that's something you want to look at for this game."

Pitchford is also excited by the Wii U touchscreen, which can be used in the game as a motion sensor, and, since it's a motion sensitive controller, will allow you to sweep the room.  In multiplayer you can use it to check the leaderboard.

Pitchford clearly had more to say about the Wii U, but noted, "it's up to Nintendo to talk about their system and they haven't revealed all of their details yet."  In terms of online play, all he said was that if the Wii U didn't offer offer proper online play they wouldn't have been comfortable putting so much effort into the Wii U version of the game.

The game itself looks pretty cool; I'm excited to see what Gearbox has come up with.

via Examiner.com

IGN just polled 62,000 of its readers on their attitudes towards the next generation of consoles.  The good news for Nintendo is that of gamers who use their Wii regularly, 68% are interested in buying a Wii U, just about the same percentage seen with 360 and PS3 gamers.  On the down side, far few gamers overall are interested in the upcoming console.

Overall, gamers show less enthusiasm for the Wii U than for the expected successors to the other home consoles; while almost two thirds are interested in buying a PS4 (63%) and an Xbox 720 (60%), only 40% are interested in buying a Wii U.

In more bad news for Nintendo, when gamers were asked what they wanted from their next console, the majority said a "major graphics update" (72%) while only slightly more than a third said "innovative controllers." (37%)  Other things that beat innovation were "more media connectivity" (44%) and "streaming digital games" (40%).

IGN's readers tend to be core gamers, so the poll doesn't reveal what's in the minds of the many casual and first-time gamers who bought a Wii.  But it bodes ill for Nintendo's plans to win over core gamers, who tend to have a low opinion of the Wii and gesture gaming, and who focus a lot on graphics.

On the other hand, those polled are basing their enthusiasm for the PS4 and Xbox 720 on pure speculation, since at this point no one knows much about what features they will have or how much they might cost.  If Nintendo makes a good case for the Wii U at E3 in June then these numbers cold change.  But clearly Nintendo has their work cut out for them with the core gamers.

It's tough being that one critic who doesn't like the game everyone else in the world loves.  You feel like you're through the looking glass.  I don't know why people love the games I call the 10 Most Overrated Wii Games of all Time, but I know they won't love me for dissing them.