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Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata Discusses Developers Relationship to Wii U GamePad, Xbox LIVE & PSN, Apple TV

Continuing the story of Nintendo Worldwide President Satoru Iwata‘s appearance at an investor relations meeting post-E3 expo, the big boss himself had already spoken in length about his thoughts regarding Microsoft’s Smartglass for Xbox and the company’s weighty cheque book, rewarding developers who sign up for exclusive deals. Iwata then spoke more about the developers themselves.


The Japan-based gaming co. President suggested that, along much the lines of his American counterpart Reggie Fils-Aime, developers are still working to get to grips with the new Wii U GamePad and are only actually utilising half of the gaming gadget’s potential leading into the next home console’s pre-Christmas launch. Iwata says [via translation]:

“While existing platforms have engines that development teams have tuned and optimized for six to seven years after their respective launches, the Wii U is a new platform that has slightly different architecture and, since development teams have only just begun development on software for it, they are only at the halfway point to utilising its full potential”.

Remarking on the Nintendo Wii U console’s graphic capabilities, he brought up Assassin’s Creed III as an example, stating that “you can’t see much difference when you compare it with games for other companies’ systems” ie: Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s Playstation 3.

The Nintendo Boss also went on to discuss the financial allocation heading into the Wii U’s launch, and much of this based around manufacturing an all-new piece of hardware to accompany the console.

“In other words, we think that the way that the various console manufacturers are allocating their budgets to the hardware is different from the way that we allocate our budget to the hardware. Ultimately, we’re looking to maintain a price point for the Wii U that is reasonable in comparison to the value to be offered.”

Iwata’s quotes during this investor’s meeting seemed quite braggadicious up to this point, but on the subject of Nintendo’s absent of a legitimate gaming network, the President revealed that the likes of Xbox LIVE and the Playstation Network are indeed out of Nintendo’s league and “therefore, I can’t sit here and say to you that we can very quickly overcome or catch up to other companies, which began to work in the online field from many years ago and have been building these online networks on other platforms, and I don’t think that would be a smart strategy, either.” – he says.

Before the meeting came to an end the President had a chance to talk about the future launch of Apple TV. Having promised a “living room revolution” with the new Wii U, when quizzed on whether the new set from Apple would threaten the Wii U with it’s smart tech bringing games and apps to the comfort of our lounge, Iwata claims there would be no contest as the two are much different products. He said: “however fantastic the new television is to be launched, it’s not as likely that people will immediately move to upgrade a television necessarily because of that longer cycle.”

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