Miyamoto: Some people consider Wii U to be a next-gen Wii, HD visuals not enough, uniqueness
It’s true that Nintendo fans are pleased that they’ll finally be able to see their favorite franchises in HD, but, unfortunately, Nintendo is a bit late to the party. Both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 have been supporting HD games with high-quality visuals for a number of years.
Nintendo is aware of this, which is one reason why they’ve introduced the Wii U controller. The tablet is one element that is completely unique and it sounds like the company might be introducing unique network functionality in the future.
Shigeru Miyamoto teased, “Although I cannot elaborate on its network functions today, as we are preparing for the launch of the Wii U, we are taking into consideration its network-related capabilities.”
Read on for Miyamoto’s full comments:
“Regarding the size of the development teams, after releasing various titles this year, I think that we will be able to explain about the teams that are developing the software, but we have already started working with a number of other companies. Talking about game development in general, if we develop video games based upon similar concepts and scale as before and release it for multiple hardware systems, the time each developer has to spend to do similar work again and again increases, which is not so interesting for the developers. Talking about the Wii U, it is going to be compatible with high-definition TV sets, which are now widespread and, with the graphics capabilities catching up to the general trend, some people consider it to be the ‘next-generation Wii.’ On the other hand, as far as graphics capabilities are concerned, there are already other hardware systems with similar functions. Therefore, we have designed the Wii U to be recognized as being different from any other hardware system. Although I cannot elaborate on its network functions today, as we are preparing for the launch of the Wii U, we are taking into consideration its network-related capabilities.”
“In short, the bottom line is the number of new things which are possible only on Wii U we can create, and our basic policy is to nurture the younger people who can think about the ways to create such things. We are making efforts so that when we release applicable software in the future, you will be pleasantly surprised and you might say, ‘Oh, this is what you were trying to achieve!’ or ‘These are the titles you were preparing.'”
