Speaking in the first part of a two-part interview with All Things D’s Tricia Duryee, Nintendo’s Global President Satoru Iwata talks about Nintendo’s plans for the Wii U, saying that Nintendo considers the Wii U to be the next step for the Wii, transforming the relationships between the family, the video game and the Internet. He also acknowledges that Nintendo hopes to win back the hardcore gamer with the new HD console:
“The Wii has already achieved very impressive things, but there were two things we were not able to realise: We could not keep up with the hardcore gamers and the Wii original was not compatible with HDTVs.”
He adds that third-party publishers have already started to adapt their shooting games to the Wii U’s touchscreen controller:
“For example, ordinarily when you are playing a shooter type of game, your main TV screen is the battlefield; however, oftentimes you have to open a new window to select items or weapons to see the entire map. But you don’t have to do that anymore with Wii U because you’ll have a screen that will show you that information.”
Iwata ventures that Nintendo believes that the Wii U will be “as powerful as any other console,” and that as well as attracting back the hardcore gamers to Nintendo, he hopes that the console’s new touchscreen controller will also attract those people who were never previously interested in the Wii at all, such as those who might want to use it for video chat, or for Web browsing.
“Even though we used a system that caters to the needs of the most skilful players, we are also trying to reach out to the people who are not interested in video games.”
