Along with the forthcoming adapter that'll let people play Super Smash Bros on Wii U with their old GameCube controllers, the peripheral company PDP is making some custom GameCube-style controllers for Nintendo's new console. We saw them today, and they look just lovely.
Stephen Totilo and I found the three controllers, officially named the "wired fight pad," on the show floor at E3 today. They were on display with matching wiimotes, though the wiimotes are official Nintendo products, not made by PDP.
The wired fight pad comes in three varieties. There's Yoshi:
Mario:
and Peach:
Vital stats: The PDP reps said that all three controllers will be a limited run, and will be available for pre-order at Gamestop starting now. I can't find them on the Gamestop site, so who knows how limited they are or when orders are officially open, but it sounds like it'll be soon. The PDP site lists them as going for $24.99.
The controllers differ from a classic GameCube controller in a few ways - they have two matching thumbsticks, they have two shoulder buttons and a "home" button, which will let them work much like a Wii classic controller pro. As for the wiimotes, the Yoshi wiimote will only be available in Europe, and the other two will be available in North America at least.
I've been holding off buying a pro controller, and now I'm glad I did.