Have A Look At The Nintendo Wii U’s “GamePad”

Before... and after.

That’s right, the innovative new tablet controller the Wii U has been flaunting ever since last year’s E3 now has an official name – the Wii U “GamePad”. Not quite what I would’ve guessed, but hey, at least it isn’t something totally inappropriate.

President of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata, also revealed a few new changes in the controller’s primary design – and guess what? They’ve replaced the circle pads with actual clickable analogue sticks. Isn’t this just delightful? It was apparently decided that circle pads were better suited to handhelds, thus resulting in the change – well, the truth will set you free, Nintendo.

Iwata also announced that the little mysterious square on the left-hand side of the GamePad is the Near-Field Communication reader and writer, allowing quite fancy stuff such as figurines and the likes to interact with the console. Another button on the bottom right of the controller is a nifty little thing that lets you use the GamePad as a standard infra-red television remote control. How universal this thing is turning out to be. It was also revealed that the back of the controller was slightly redesigned to feel more comfortable to gamers.

Saving the best for last, it was also reported that the controller was sighted in black. Could we be seeing the Wii U in two standard colours on launch day? I, personally, do hope this points to the obvious.

It must be.