From the system's first unveiling at E3 2011 to Thursday's final announcement of launch details, Nintendo has been releasing information about its next home console, the Wii U, in bits and pieces for about 15 months now. Unless you've been closely following all those data drops, you may have missed some important details about Nintendo's future hardware plans.

That's where we come in. The below FAQ collects all the pertinent information we currently know about the Wii U.