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Worry over financial viability almost led to a rethink.
Satoru Iwata has revealed that concerns over pricing nearly led to Nintendo ditching the Wii U's second screen.
In an interview with The Telegraph newspaper, the Nintendo president admitted that the company wasn't convinced it could get the GamePad to customers at a reasonable price.
He said, "Sometime during that final discussion we almost gave up on the idea of the additional screen. This was due to our concern over the expected high cost, it may not have been feasible to create this and sell it at a reasonable price point for the consumers."
They stuck with it though and, if recent reports are to be believed, managed to find a way to include the GamePad without making the console unaffordable for most gamers. Iwata also reasserted Nintendo's commitment to being a family company, and revealed the inspiration for the second screen came from domestic problems caused by occupying the living room.
He explained, "The TV in the living room is shared by every member of family, and if someone wanted to play a Wii game for a long time period, other members of the family may find that troublesome. So at the early stages of the discussion between ourselves, we came up with the idea of the additional screen."
Continuing in the spirit of inclusion, Iwata also revealed that Nintendo is committed to regaining the support of many third-party publishers that were lost due to the Wii's inferior graphics capability. The fact that the Xbox 360 and PS3 were more powerful meant that developers would make games with them in mind then struggled to adapt them for the Wii.
"In the case of the Wii U, we have decided to make it so that it is capable of doing whatever the other two consoles can do, so games are easily portable," he claimed. "As we expand the install-base of the Wii U, I see greater opportunities for the third-parties to be able to provide the Wii U with quality software titles. And as well as the third-party multi-platform titles, we will have publishers making exclusive Wii U titles."
The Wii U is expected to be released by the end of the year, though an exact date is yet to be confirmed.
Satoru Iwata has revealed that concerns over pricing nearly led to Nintendo ditching the Wii U's second screen.
In an interview with The Telegraph newspaper, the Nintendo president admitted that the company wasn't convinced it could get the GamePad to customers at a reasonable price.
He said, "Sometime during that final discussion we almost gave up on the idea of the additional screen. This was due to our concern over the expected high cost, it may not have been feasible to create this and sell it at a reasonable price point for the consumers."
They stuck with it though and, if recent reports are to be believed, managed to find a way to include the GamePad without making the console unaffordable for most gamers. Iwata also reasserted Nintendo's commitment to being a family company, and revealed the inspiration for the second screen came from domestic problems caused by occupying the living room.
He explained, "The TV in the living room is shared by every member of family, and if someone wanted to play a Wii game for a long time period, other members of the family may find that troublesome. So at the early stages of the discussion between ourselves, we came up with the idea of the additional screen."
Continuing in the spirit of inclusion, Iwata also revealed that Nintendo is committed to regaining the support of many third-party publishers that were lost due to the Wii's inferior graphics capability. The fact that the Xbox 360 and PS3 were more powerful meant that developers would make games with them in mind then struggled to adapt them for the Wii.
"In the case of the Wii U, we have decided to make it so that it is capable of doing whatever the other two consoles can do, so games are easily portable," he claimed. "As we expand the install-base of the Wii U, I see greater opportunities for the third-parties to be able to provide the Wii U with quality software titles. And as well as the third-party multi-platform titles, we will have publishers making exclusive Wii U titles."
The Wii U is expected to be released by the end of the year, though an exact date is yet to be confirmed.
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