The rumors continue. After a big blast last week and some specs shortly after, Kotaku is reporting that the rumors of an enormous new controller with a 6.2″ touchscreen are real. I’m trying to make allowances for Nintendo weirdness, but I just have to get a few reservations off my chest.
A 6.2″ touchscreen is too big, too heavy, and too expensive. This is really my main issue with the thing. A six-inch touchscreen is nearly the size of a Galaxy Tab &mdsah; bigger than both screens in the 3DS put together. Add in the molding, button and stick mechanisms, and this is also looking rather heavy for any kind of extended play, don’t you think? And a six-inch touchscreen (likely capacitive) is an expensive component. Wiimotes were never exactly cheap, and with this new design a 3rd-party controller seems unlikely. If the console is itself more expensive by itself (analyst estimates put it at $300-$350), bundling a controller puts it in luxury console range, somewhere Nintendo hasn’t been in a long time.
That said, it makes sense with the current top/bottom screen idea they’ve been running with with the DS series. The “main” screen has the action, the “sub” screen has minigames, inventory, commands, all that stuff.
It’s not that I think it wouldn’t be cool. I just don’t think they can do it for less than $100 per bulky, heavy controller. I might be wrong (and they have a year to refine the design, according to the rumored release schedule), but I just had to say that despite the insider information Kotaku seems to have gotten, I just don’t fully buy everything that’s being said.