Nintendo tends to have creativity and a handful of whimsy on its side during game development, but when it comes to technical prowess, the Mario maker is always a step behind the competition. Its used its lower-powered consoles quite well since the introduction of the Wii system, but Nintendo president Satoru Iwata argues that the Wii U isn’t as underpowered as everyone seems to think.
The Wii U "underperforming" is not a premise that Iwata is unaware of, as he recently acknowledged the idea to investors during a post-earnings presentation. Some developers just don’t think the Wii U is all that high tech, but others have discovered the contrary to be true.
"It is a fact that some software development companies assume that Wii U is not powerful enough," Iwata said. "On the contrary, some developers say in interviews that Wii U has a different architecture from other consoles and that, when utilized in the right way, it can perform well. At the moment, there is a great deal of contradictory information."
Even if this is a false perception, Iwata knows that it’s Nintendo’s responsibility to prove to developers that they can make exciting, high-end products on the Wii U.
"Nintendo is required to make more efforts to dispel such a misconception," he said. "In fact, some software companies are actively supporting Wii U and others are not. It is important to have supportive companies enjoy successful sales of a game and feel that their decision to develop something for Wii U was correct."
With projections missed and its press conference cancelled, Nintendo has plenty of work to do. We’ll just have to see how it handles the pressure in the coming months.
"We understand that this cannot possibly be achieved overnight and it may sound unconvincing under the current slow sales of Wii U," Iwata said. "We would like to work to revitalize the Wii U market and show you favorable results for third-party software from this summer."
