5. Old school values
Previously, Nintendo brought us the revolutionary Wii, which was intended to bring families back playing games together, albeit with a modern technology twist, and with the Wii U, Nintendo seem to be trying their hand at bringing back another past-time that's been lost to the ages. That past-time? Letter writing. You might think that this is a strange thing for a console to do, but with the Wii U you can write out letters on the touch screen and send them to your friends for that personal feel. You can even draw pictures. Apparently Nintendo not only want to be remembered for their contributions to the gaming world, but also for their efforts at bringing people together with the old school methods that have been and gone, adapted perfectly for the chosen audience. Together better indeed.
6. Facial expressions
This is an aspect that is purely for social purposes. You can tell your friends the mood that you are in, through the full gambit traditionally associated with gaming, whether that be happy, sad, or burning with fury. This is something that has previously been successfully employed on social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. It's another feature that will bring the experience of social networking into the gaming experience itself through mimicked functionality and this can only be good for the Wii U because it will (they presumably hope) stop gamers from turning off to go and share what they are doing on "competitor" sites.
7. Social Window
Social Window is a major feature of Nintendo's latest brainwave, with it the gamer no longer has to be using the big screen of the TV to have the interaction with the console. Basically and rather wonderfully, you can 'allow' your other half/parents/children free reign of the TV remote as you continue your Wii U experience right there in your hands, free of the usual restrictions of being linked via a headset to the console for you to converse with your fellow gamers. This is a massive advantage over Xbox Live and PSN and something that the people over at Nintendo HQ seem to be particularly excited about as it received a major amount of the time in the recent pre-E3 webcast.
8. Cross device chat capability
This is something to be excited about. Nintendo President Satoru Itawa used the Pre-E3 debrief to talk about what could be possible in the future for the gaming network, and inter-gamer communication will hopefully become available across other Nintendo platforms such as the Nintendo DS/3DS, your PC and your Wii. This somewhat resembles how Apple users can talk across several devices using the iMessaging service - and yes, that means we now have another way to chat to one another! This is something none of the other games consoles have attempted to do and I feel that it is a massively unique selling point for the latest in the Nintendo family. Everybody loves a new never-before-seen feature, or at least, unseen in the realm of gaming. Only time will tell if Wii U will make it big out there in the real world, but if what has been shown to us at E3 is anything to go by, then I for one am certainly looking forward to trying it out. What do you think? Has the Wii U got you excited? Let us know below. Check back for more dedicated Wii U coverage in the coming days, weeks and months.