Nintendo Unveils the Wii U

On Tuesday, Nintendo unveiled its next generation home video game machine — Wii U , which is expected to launch in 2012.

The Wii U is equipped with a 6.2-inch LCD touch-screen, a camera, a microphone and an accelerometer. This controller acts as a sort of fusion of a gamepad, tablet PC and a handheld gaming system.

The system will allow players to transfer games from their TV to the controller seamlessly. Also players will be able to ”sling” elements from the controller to the TV, such as using the touch screen to throw shurikens at targets on their HD set, use the controller as a digital sketch pad, have video chats with the built-in front-facing cam, and surf the web.

The Wii U can pump out 1080p video over HDMI. There’ll be “internal flash memory”, which will be expandable via either an SD card or external USB HDD.