Iwata on SmartGlass: Microsoft sees value in approach, “only a small facet” of Wii U
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has offered extensive thoughts on SmartGlass, which is drawing a number of comparisons to Wii U. Microsoft introduced the technology at E3 2012 last week.
Iwata noted a couple of things in particular. First, he believes that SmartGlass is an acknowledgment that Microsoft “clearly see value in what we’re trying to do” and “there are people who see great appeal in what we’re offering.” At the same time, Iwata feels that SmartGlass provides “only a small facet of what the Wii U is capable of.”
Also worth mentioning: In his response, Iwata explained that Nintendo has been very careful with latency. The company understands that latency/lag could mean a product is “no longer a quality game.”
For Iwata’s full comments, head past the break.
One thing that I can say is that previously, after we’d introduced motion control, it took the other companies about three years before they introduced their own style of motion control. This time, the fact is that we’ve seen something of this nature come out within a one-year time frame from when we first announced the Wii U. That suggests to me that they clearly see value in what we’re trying to do. I think that an approach that nobody follows is one that few people see value in. So the fact that we have so quickly seen somebody following in the footsteps of what we first introduced with the Wii U, suggests that there are people who see great appeal in what we’re offering. I think that’s proof of that.
On the other hand, the question is, is what they’re offering truly capable of doing everything that we’re offering? From what we have seen so far, it looks to us as if what they are able to offer really is only a small facet of what the Wii U is capable of. We know that the core users who love playing video games like controllers that you hold with two hands. But what you don’t have on smartphones and tablets are the buttons and the control sticks that they prefer to use. Now, if they could hold a controller with two hands and hold a tablet or a smartphone with another hand, there would be no issue. Unfortunately, since it is not possible for humans to do that, you can’t play a game in a way you can play with the Wii U. The other thing that’s important to know is that with the Wii U GamePad we have paid particular attention to the latency (the time to be spent for wireless communication between the Wii U system and the Wii U GamePad) issues to allow the Wii U to truly create seamless gaming experiences on the Wii U GamePad. What that means is that when the user presses the button on the Wii U GamePad, the signal of the button processes a transmitter to the Wii U hardware, and the Wii U hardware draws graphics in reaction to the signal received from the Wii U GamePad and transmits those graphics back to the screen in the Wii U GamePad. If you have latency within that process, or lag within that process, it’s no longer a quality game. So clearly and naturally the latency for a situation like that is going to be very different from a device that has specifically been designed to achieve that type of seamless interaction versus a device that simply has conventional technology layered for each device to be purchased for individual reasons. If you were just talking about streaming movies, there would be no issues because there would be no interactive development for that. The moment that you look at an interactive experience, people become very sensitive to the lag and the latency, so that’s the reason why we thought it would be meaningful to create the Wii U GamePad. The advantage of the Wii U system and the Wii U GamePad bundled together is to ensure that everyone will have the same experiences. I believe that even if Microsoft is able to bring SmartGlass to their console or if, according to the Sony story, the company is able to connect two different consoles, the advantage that we see in the Wii U will not be taken away.
