Nintendo president Satoru Iwata was asked how large the Wii U’s hard drive will be to accommodate digital downloads during a recent investors Q&A session.
But wait… Nintendo hasn’t said anything about a built-in hard drive. In fact, they’ve hinted that one won’t be included with the system.
Here’s how Iwata reacted to the question:
“We haven’t said anything about the hard drive that we’ll be including with the system itself. But we have said, through the USB connection, consumers will be able to take advantage of a wide range of the hard drives that are available in the market, and for quite cheap now, to add memory to their system however they like.”
I’m sure there won’t be a hard drive included with Wii U. Nintendo has basically said that, without doing so explicitly. A lot of hard drives are very cheap these days, so I personally don’t see the lack of its inclusion as a big deal.
01./00. [PS3] Tokyo Jungle (SCEI) – 110,309 / NEW
02./01. [3DS] Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry no Wonderland 3D (Square Enix) – 83,329 / 596,512 (-84%)
03./00. [PSV] Kidou Senshi Gundam Seed: Battle Destiny (Namco Bandai) – 40,297 / NEW
04./02. [PS3] Dragon’s Dogma (Capcom) – 34,184 / 419,208 (-59%)
05./03. [3DS] Mario Tennis Open (Nintendo) – 24,030 / 167,154 (-42%)
06./04. [WII] Mario Party 9 (Nintendo) – 17,253 / 417,643 (-12%)
07./07. [3DS] Super Mario Land 3D (Nintendo) – 9,390 / 1,614,505 (-6%)
08./00. [PSP] Storm Lover Kai!! (D3 Publisher) – 7,931 / NEW
09./09. [3DS] Fire Emblem: Awakening (Nintendo) – 7,031 / 408,030 (-27%)
10./10. [3DS] Mario Kart 7 (Nintendo) – 6,743 / 1,735,081 (-13%)
11./12. [3DS] Monster Hunter 3 G (Capcom) – 6,146 / 1,471,805 (-12%)
12./05. [3DS] Guild01 (Level 5) – 5,297 / 20,087 (-64%)
13./06. [PS3] Jissen Pachi-Slot Hisshouhou! Hokuto no Ken F – Legend of the End of the Century Savior (SEGA) – 4,880 / 18,638 (-65%)
14./16. [WII] Wii Sports Resort (w/ Wii Remote+) (Nintendo) – 4,159 / 957,445 (-1%)
15./14. [3DS] Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games (Nintendo) – 3,888 / 180,244 (-11%)
16./21. [WII] Wii Party (Nintendo) – 3,342 / 2,361,947
17./18. [3DS] Kid Icarus: Uprising (Nintendo) – 3,157 / 287,709 (-21%)
18./26. [3DS] Nintendogs + cats (Nintendo) – 2,568 / 559,947
19./22. [PSP] Monster Hunter Portable 3rd (BEST) (Capcom) – 2,366 / 263,502
20./29. [WII] Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo) – 2,264 / 3,573,260
Nintendo has been talking a lot about first-party content on the 3DS eShop, but what about third-parties? It sounds like we’ll be seeing their games on the store soon, too.
During a Q&A analyst session at E3 2012, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime highlighted the titles shown in the graphic above. He said that these are “all coming to stores both in physical and digital formats in the second half of 2012.” In that case, yo should be able to purchase Castlevania, Scribblenauts Unlimited, and more from the eShop before the end of 2012.
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.
The Wii U is a huge step-up in power compared to the Wii, but there has been some concern that the system is very comparable to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has, unsurprisingly, said that its new console makes use of new GPUs and technology. However, the company has pushed the specs – such as processing power – to the max so that the console will be affordable to a wide array of consumers. Iwata said to investors last week that they’re “looking to maintain a price point for the Wii U that is reasonable in comparison to the value to be offered.”
Free-to-play games have become a hot topic as of late, especially at E3 2012.
Even with its rise in popularity, this isn’t an avenue that Nintendo plans to pursue. However, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata is seemingly open to the idea, telling investors last week, “that doesn’t mean for the future that there may not come a time where we have specific content that might be suited to that model.”
Read on below for Iwata’s full comments regarding Nintendo’s stance on free-to-play content.
The latest Japanese hardware sales from Media Create are as follows:
3DS – 64,875
PS3 – 15,593
Vita – 13,383
PSP – 10,038
Wii – 6,029
PS2 – 1,091
Xbox 360 – 1,001
DSi LL – 615
DSi – 383
For comparison’s sake, here are the hardware numbers from last week:
3DS – 101,075
PS3 – 14,799
PSP – 10,547
Vita – 7,551
Wii – 5,825
Xbox 360 – 2,719
PS2 – 1,106
DSi LL – 665
DSi – 379
Nintendo’s unveiling for Wii U in terms of games was incredibly odd. For the most part, we only know about titles that will be released during the launch window.
That’s very different from how Nintendo approached the Wii and 3DS. With both systems, first-party content was shown that was planned for well-beyond the launch period.
Based on new comments from Satoru Iwata, it sounds like Nintendo is intentionally keeping quiet about other games planned for the system so that their ideas won’t be stolen.
Iwata shared the following statement with investors during a Q&A session at E3 2012 last week:
First, what we’ve shown at the E3 show are both the launch titles that will be released with Wii U hardware this holiday season and the launch window titles that will be released early next year or not long after the hardware launch. We do have ideas of what kind of software we will be releasing after those two periods, and Mr. Miyamoto as well as I are both directly involved in the development process. Those include both our traditional franchises and of course new propositions as well. However, because we are now in the era when similar proposals can be made by the others just one year after we introduced a brand-new hardware system proposal, please understand that we really can’t say much about what else we are planning.
