Iwata on maintaining the sense of surprise with NX, launch won’t mark the end of Wii U/3DS games

Nintendo is not sharing any specifics about its next system – tentatively known as NX – until next year. There’s a reason for this.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, speaking at the company’s latest shareholders meeting, explained that revealing details early “could also give other companies the opportunity to come up with counterplans or implement the ideas that they find interesting.”

Iwata also touched on plans for Wii U and 3DS following NX’s launch. Even when the new system hits the market, we can apparently expect continued release for the two platforms.

Below are Iwata’s comments in full:

As I mentioned earlier, I cannot speak about the details of NX today. If I mention every detail of what we are newly thinking, it could be persuasive but it could also give other companies the opportunity to come up with counterplans or implement the ideas that they find interesting. There may also be the possibility that it will spoil the sense of surprise for consumers. Of course these factors are all against the interest of the entire company and they would ultimately harm the interest of our shareholders, so we appreciate your understanding in this respect.

Regarding your concern about what will happen to Wii U or what will happen to Nintendo 3DS, NX is a new platform, so the installed base will have to be built up from zero. When NX is launched, there already will be a certain volume of Nintendo 3DS and Wii U hardware widely existing in the market, so from a software business perspective, it would be highly inefficient to stop releasing titles for Nintendo 3DS or Wii U right after the launch of NX. Therefore, while we are preparing NX for the future, we are discussing within our internal development teams as well as with the second-party developers we co-develop software with and also with third-party software publishers about how to continue creating software for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. So, I believe that your point of concern should not happen immediately. As for Wii U, we will continue to make efforts, as it is a priority within the company to think about how we can satisfy the consumers who purchased this system to the maximum extent possible.