Nintendo's CEO Satoru Iwata doesn't feel threatened by Sony and Microsoft's future consoles possibly outclassing Wii U in terms of power -- and he doesn't believe devs will skip the system with their multiplatform games again.
During the current console generation, many developers elected not to bring their multiplatform games (e.g.
Grand Theft Auto series) to Nintendo's system, partly due to the disparity in performance between the Wii versus Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
The company expected Wii's motion controls to be more attractive to developers and consumers than high-definition visuals, but Iwata now admits that it lost the support of third-party studios when they focused on multiplatform titles.
However, he doesn't anticipate that happening with Wii U, which supports HD visuals, and the next generation of consoles. Iwata argues that, given the graphics already possible with current hardware, it doesn't make sense for platform holders to just max the specs on their systems.
"My impression is that the things that happened with Wii v 360 or Wii v PS3 won't happen again," said Iwata
in an interview with The Telegraph. "If they decide to increase the spec numbers, will the consumers be able to realize the difference enough so that they can understand it's much superior to today's machine?"
The CEO doesn't think that's what developers want either: "If they beef up the processing power, that simply means much more work for software developers to take advantage of those spec numbers. So I have to ask the question if that type of differentiation really makes sense."
Iwata also pointed out that third-party publishers are already starting to bring franchises that were previously only for Xbox 360 and PS3 (in terms of home consoles) to Wii U, such as Electronic Arts'
Mass Effect and Ubisoft's
Assassin's Creed.
"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 added.
