Project Cafe unlikely to forsake traditional controls

The rumours are pretty certain that Nintendo's new console, codenamed Project Cafe, will feature a touchpad, but even so, Nintendo isn't ready to bid farewell to the familiar buttons and directional controls.

"Whenever we make a new game console, we’ve done it without throwing away buttons and the directional pad," Nintendo president Satoru Iwata told an analyst, via Kotaku.

"The reason for that it’s better to have them, because buttons and directional pads benefit gameplay response.”

Iwata said Nintendo did not intend to change tactics any time soon.

“Nintendo isn’t planning on completely ditching buttons, nor is Nintendo thinking of taking tablets as they are today and implementing them in a game console," he said.

Project Cafe isn't due until mid 2012, but will be on show at E3 after being outed nearly two weeks ago. It is heavily rumoured to feature on-controller touch screen displays.

Thanks, CVG.