"They were particularly unclear about whether the console would support more than one of their tablet-like controllers; Mr. Miyamoto said no, but Reggie said yes (to me in a meeting)," said Pachter. "Obviously, they intend to ship the console with only one of these controllers, so it is unlikely that anyone will develop games that require two, but they were not clear whether the capability exists."
http://uk.wii.ign.com/articles/117/1176175p1.html
:? now I'm confused. Can it or can't it.
The problem is, Sony and MS are developing new consoles. Which means in a year or two Nintendo's going to be behind again. With that said, I think there's a bit of potential for displays in controllers, but I think Nintendo did what they did with the Wii, and stop short of being truly innovative. The controller shouldn't be 100% tethered to the console, you should be able to move your game from the console to the controller, and be able to play on the go. Kinda like what Sony's trying to do with the PS3 + PSVita.
To be fair though there are some other ways to look at that.
1) We don't know how much more powerful Ps4 and next box will be. Sony and Microsoft themselves said their consoles were living longer as the difference between them wont be as big. I mean Ps2 to PS3 = big leap. PS3 to PS4 = not as big.
So with Wii-U estimated at 50% more powerful than ps3. The difference between it and PS4 maybe only small. I can see it in terms of power been Ps4 > next box > Wii-U but not by much. Like it was Ps2 < NGC < Xbox. but Ps2 was still great compared to other 2
2) PS3 + PSVita = a price of around what $600 to $700 , where as Wii-U they want it at a reasonable price. So it wont be as much as 2 consoles. That's the reason for wire ect.... to cut costs.
3) There may be PS3 + PSVita like wireless connectivity in future as they want 3DS to hook up to it maybe as an extra pad. That would be done with no wires they say