Miyamoto on Wii U NFC, dual GamePads, more regular announcements this year, E3 value
The Wii U has been out for a few months now, but there is still one element of the console that remains untapped: NFC. No Nintendo or third-party games have yet to take advantage of the functionality.
When asked about Nintendo’s plans for Wii U’s NFC, Shigeru Miyamoto said:
“With NFC, that’s a feature that everyone that owns a Wii U can take advantage of. So that’s what we’re putting our priorities right now. We’re hoping that in the near future we’ll be able to show you something that will take advantage of the NFC on Wii U and people will be able to enjoy that.”
Miyamoto was additionally asked about the future of dual GamePad usage. Nintendo announced at last year’s E3 that the Wii U would be capable of supporting two controllers at a time with future releases, though this is yet another feature that has not been implemented.
“With regards to the two GamePads functionality, from a gaming system standpoint we are developing games that will have that capability. In the future, perhaps when we get closer to something that, an environment where everybody or a large majority of people would have two GamePads, that might be a time where we look at how we can leverage a system of that nature.”
Going back to the topic of NFC, Miyamoto answered a question about whether Nintendo would save its Wii U NFC project for E3. Miyamoto noted how Nintendo has, in recent years, been spreading out announcements and sharing news in different ways as opposed to saving reveals for E3. He hinted that we could see something within the next few months, as “this in particular is going to be a year where we’re seeing more regular announcements from Nintendo about what’s coming”.
“It used to be that we would save many of our announcements for E3 and we would announce them at the show, but what we’ve seen in the recent years is that there are a number of different ways and a number of different times when we have more opportunity to make those announcements. So I can’t today make any promises of what we’re going to do at E3, but I think, this in particular is going to be a year where we’re seeing more regular announcements from Nintendo about what’s coming and that someplace within the announcements that we’re making, hopefully we’ll have something to share about NFC.”
Lastly, Miyamoto commented on the importance of E3 in that the expo provides an opportunity for different people to experience content:
“But as I think Mr. Iwata has been saying lately, where we do see a tremendous value in E3 is it’s a place where people can come and they can actually get their hands on and try the software we’ve been talking about, so I think that’s what people can look forward to at E3.”
