By now, it should be pretty obvious that the Wii U has the potential to change the way we play our most beloved genres of games. Touchscreen inventories, windows into the game world, one-on-four multiplayer – a number of E3 demos teased the possibilities. But the “Swiss Army Knife” of controllers might have even more uses than you’ve ever imagined.

Nintendo Entusiast has published an incredibly thorough list of enhancements the Wii U could bring to various modern video games – a whopping 145 of them, to be exact. It’s quite extensive, with suggestions for everything from Assassin’s Creed to Professor Layton; but it’s worth your attention, especially in a slow news week like this one. Click here to read it.

Kevin Leathers, producer of We Sing Rock, was interviewed by Train2Game, an online college. The interview focused primarily on the latest Wii game in the series, but it came with a short Wii U tease, too.

Asked if he thinks the Wii U will solve the Wii’s issue of technical limitations, Leathers had the following to say:

I can’t say too much about it at the moment, but obviously the Wii U is a much more powerful machine and we’re hoping there are quite a few changes between the Wii and Wii U that’ll help with many of the functions of it. Fingers crossed! Especially with the tablet controller design as well, that could prove for some very interesting gameplay designs later on.

We Sing might not be your cup of tea, but there will need to be some kind of “casual” support for the Wii U in addition to the core games we were promised if Nintendo want it to truly succeed the Wii.

Indie studio Ronimo (best known for their WiiWare hit Swords & Soldiers) have expressed an interest in developing for the Wii U, but aren’t ready to make any decisions just yet. The console’s online system was, however, cited as a possible point of concern.

We’d have to see what it brings to the table in the online department, but it [would] be cool to see Awesomenauts on WiiWare or something like that. But we’d probably need help from a publisher to do it. It’s not a matter of principle.

We love Nintendo, and we really like what we’ve seen from the new platform so far. But for the moment, we’re focusing on finishing up Awesomenauts. We don’t know enough about Wii U to make any decisions on that at this point.

From being called upon by Satoru Iwata at E3 to their gush of positive comments on the system, it seems that EA’s enthusiasm for the Wii knows no bounds.

Not too long ago, Peter Moore let out another stream of praise for the system’s dual-screen experience, explaining how it applies to the modern gadget-crazy world.

I don’t know about you, but watching TV I find myself either sitting with my laptop doing emails or my iPad browsing the web while the TV is going on in front of me. I think I’m watching it, depending on what it is.

But the second screen mentality, it’s not only doing something different, but also every now and then you are watching TV and have a question and it’s fascinating now to do enquiries and find out information about something that you are watching on the mane screen using your second screen.

Moore then went on to say how many of EA’s games “are built for calling plays or strategies that you can’t see on the big screen.”

There certainly isn’t anything we haven’t heard before here, but that last quip sounds like a tease for a few big sports games.

DICE, the famed studio behind the Battlefield games, has Wii U dev kits but is apparently NOT working on bringing the just-released Battlefield 3 to the system.

Asked if there was any reason they would not want to bring the game to the Wii U, seeing as it is a more capable machine than the current HD twins, Patrcik Liu had this to say:

No, and that’s exactly the reason we’re looking into it. But I’m a big fan of Nintendo myself, just looking at what they’ve done with the Wii and the Wii U… but we have to come up with something that really uses their controls. And until we get that bright idea of what to do with the new controls I don’t think there’s any point in making another version that’s just the same as everyone else.

It’s a shame that we can’t count this shooter as a Wii U game just yet, but this isn’t an outright denial – only a confirmation that a Wii U version isn’t actually in development.

Bit.Trip Runner 2 was recently announced for Playstation Network and Xbox Live Arcade. In an email to Nintendo World Report, Alex Neuse, developer at Gaijin Games, explained that the reason the game isn’t coming to WiiWare is because the game is getting an HD overhaul and “the Wii cannot handle the game.” He stated that if the console had sufficient power, it would most certainly be coming to WiiWare because they “love the Wii!”

There’s no reason for Nintendo fans to be completely disappointed, however, as he backed up his loving claim by saying that they are considering the Wii U, but that they’re “not ready to officially announce anything yet.”

I myself am hopeful that those considerations are leaning in favor of the Wii U. What better way to launch Nintendo’s new online service than with a Bit.Trip game?

The above listing has popped up on EA’s press site for Mass Effect 3 on a ‘Next Gen’ platform, in addition to the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC versions. It seems only logical that this mystery platform is the Wii U, seeing as there aren’t any other next-generation consoles we know about coming next year. What’s more, Frank Gibeau said earlier this year that Mass Effect and the Wii U are a “nice fit” for each other.

At this point, the game’s coming to the Wii U is still a rumour, but it’s a well-supported one that seems quite realistic. Let’s hope it’s true.

During an interview with NowGamer, Batman: Arkham City developer Dax Ginn said that he is perfectly fine with the current power of consoles, but that he also finds the Wii U very exciting. He says that, though the Wii U makes many advancements, not all of them match the game’s design perfectly.

The design of the console is really trying to do a lot of different things. I think the things that it’s trying to do, it’s going to be very good at. But it’s not one-to-one comparable to the things we’ve done with this game.

So without a doubt, we’re going to have to think about what that means, how the game is going to have to adapt in order to play to the strengths of the console.

Good news to see that Arkham City isn’t just being ported over. Aside from obvious graphical enhancements, I hope lots of thought goes into the controls; I’d love to see how such a well-rated game plays with the tablet-controller!

A couple of weeks ago, Peter Garza, the head of localization at Tecmo Koei, told VG247 that the Wii U version of Ninja Gaiden 3 wasn’t being developed alongside the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, and that development had only just started. He stated that this was because Team Ninja wants to push the Wii U as “hard as it can” and that they’re still learning just what the hardware can do.

…And we really wanted to use whatever hardware we were on, we want to use to its full potential and really push that. Not just in spec, but the features that make that hardware unique. So for right now with Wii U, we’re just starting to know what Wii U is and how we can make it fun.

So it seems that, rather than just porting the game over, Team Ninja is trying to exploit as much power and functionality as they can out of Nintendo’s console. Considering what they did with Dead or Alive: Dimensions and Metroid: Other M, I can only expect this to be one of the best-looking Wii U games to be released early in its life.

It seems that the infamous game industry analyst, Michael Pachter, is back. In a recent interview with IndustryGamers, Pacther expressed difficulty predicting that the Wii U would have a “hugely successful launch”. He said that the reason for his questioning is due to the difficulty of transitioning from this generation’s hardware to the next generation’s, as well as the lack of announced exclusives.

Personally, I think Pachter’s prediction is a bit premature. We’ve already heard one developer say that developing games for the Wii U is no more difficult than developing games for the Xbox 360, and there is plenty of time left for third parties to announce their exclusives. What do you think, does Pachter have a point, or is he a few months early?