Nah, the 360 pad (and probably PS3 pad, but I don't have one on hand to check) can click and rotate at the same time. It means you can press it without having to let the stick reset to its central position first - so you can click it whilst on the move, for example.

fanboy wars starting on the interwebs already

Hilarious. Guy doesn't realise that the PS3 controller is just a 360 controller with the left stick in the wrong spot for modern games

I hope the charging cord is long enough so that I could use the controller while it's charging. Nothing worse than a dying controller during a gaming session.

I wonder if you'll still need to use the Gamepad to select a game, and then pick up the Pro controller once it's started.

For the 3DS it would be annoying having to go without power while changing batteries because you'd have to restart your software, but I wouldn't feel that way about a controller. As it is, I do find it annoying that once I plug the 3DS in to recharge, I'm tethered to that outlet for hours. I think I would feel the same way about USB charging. At least being tethered to a Wiimote, I can still move around everywhere with it. The internal battery mainly concerns me because down the road when it wears out it's going to be trouble having to get specialized replacements and take the controller apart to replace it. I like that I can just use AA batteries in my Wiimotes, because I always have extras charged and ready.

@iphys
If I had to choose between having to plug in a cable and being forced to stay in the same spot or having to stop the game and fumble around with some batteries I know what I'm going to pick. Don't forget that it wasn't that long ago when we literally had to always have the controller plugged in so I'm pretty sure we'll live with the minor and rarely occurring inconvenience of not being able to move around with our controller.

and the worry about not being able to get a replacement for it years down the line? Pretty much every consumer electronic device since about 2004 except the Wii remote says hi.

It looks wireless with an on/off button to save batteries. I wonder though if its a battery sucker or not?

It should be less power hungry than the Wii Remote because it obviously doesn't have the IR camera. What it has or doesn't have beyond that is anyone's guess. I'm guessing it'll have rumble, a gyro, accelerometers and a magometer because AFAIK that's everything the Wii U "GamePad" has that you might want to use. So it should have a pretty long battery life, depends on how awesome the internal battery is.

Also I would guess that the power button is for turning the Wii U on and off not the controller. Same as the power button on the Wii Remote.

It would be nice if a device like this would somehow emulate a CC/Pro for backwards-compatibility.

tl;dr all three parties have come up with what is essentially the ideal format for all modern control pads, but have to reshuffle slightly to avoid lawsuits.

Put it this way - if Nintendo revealed the Wii U Pro to be a classic-style pad with a completely different layout to the PS3 or 360 pads, what would we have? We'd have a rubbish pad.

Thats why I purchased the 'NITHO 3DS Lithium-ion battery pack' use it when your 3DS starts flashing red all you do is clip the pack on the top and press a button and you can play while your internal battery charges. It only takes about half hour to fully charge and I get 8 hours out of my system using this. Only cost me $28 and its worth every penny

Even though I like this controller, I am hoping Nintendo will release a Gamecube-style variant. I love the Gamecube controller to death, and I don't want it to go...

@Vintage Well you have to have an analogue stick on each side, two sets of triggers, a d-pad on the left, four face buttons and start/select/power/home. There are only really three reasonable ways to do that and this "Wii U Pro" has picked the one layout that the 360 and PS3 don't use.

Then there's the shape of the thing which is also pretty limited in what you can do given they're all designed to be played by humans with human hands. It's always going to a design that fills that space made by your hands when you pretend to loosely hold something with both hands. As soon as it became cheap enough to do a fully curved controller this was the inevitable end result.

I'll get it. I always did like that sort of controller, plus it might be better for some games.

Looks like Nintendo copies Microsoft again. Always behind I see... Enjoy your 6 year old console while the hardcore gamers move onto real games like GTA and Call of Duty. Anything else is for children.

Real games hahahaha you are funny incorrect but funny

I'm a bit surprised they haven't done that. People always talk about how comfortable the GC controller is in comparison to others - it often gets mentioned as the most comfortable controller ever - so surely they could have adapted it with a couple of extra buttons and slight cosmetic modifications to differentiate it from the GC.

I am hoping this was a joke cause if not....that's pretty funny . Call of Duty can get to the point where it is completely unoriginal, and GTA...it has some good game concepts, but it is full of trash. I don't know why they feel they have to add unneeded language, drug use, and other things I'm not going to talk about on this forum to games now, but it's not my cup of tea.

Anyway, I am really liking the look of this controller. Another great option for games from the looks of it. Hopefully people who enjoy games such as FPS, who did not like the Wii, will enjoy this.

so true but imagine it being more comfortable than the GC controller
But then again I just want the gamepad. I will only get this if I really really need it, but I think its great there's so much choice

What's funny is that people on both sides of this pointless fanboy argument don't seem to be getting used to the idea that the Wii U is pretty much a Nintendo branded 360/PS3. Every day it's looking more and more like a 360/PS3 with the added bonus of first party Nintendo games. So yeah, I'm sure we will enjoy our "6 year old" console but mostly because we'll be playing GTA and CoD on it while the "hardcore" enjoy playing watered down games exclusively on their "next gen" system that is literally six years old. We'll all be doing that 'till at least 2015 by the looks of it so we'd better get used to the idea.

Pseud who care about GtA V and Oscar winning gameplay. When we have lego city stories.