Nintendo: Virtual Reality’s Biggest Weakness is that it’s a Single Player Experience

Virtual reality is a single player experience at the moment and until that changes, solitude will be the technology's biggest weakness according to Nintendo of America executive VP of sales and marketing Scott Moffitt.

Speaking to GamesIndustry at E3 last week, Moffitt commented: 

"What I'd say is it's appealing technology. It's interesting. We're going to follow it closely to see where it goes. It's got a lot of advantages. It's got one disadvantage relative to what we know is often very fun for gamers, which is playing games socially in a living room. This is a very single player solitary gaming experience.

"Not all of our games are fun to play with multiple people in a living room in front of a game console but it doesn't lend itself to that kind of an experience as well as what Wii U does now. That would be a disadvantage of going in that direction. Could it be a nice addition to our hardware platform? Sure."

Much of the push into virtual reality has been driven by the now Facebook-owned Oculus with its Rift headset but Sony's Project Morpheus has also garnered attention, though the Japanese firm has yet to announce plans for commercial release but R&D engineer Anton Mikhailov has said that the product will be "affordable" should it ever hit the market. 

Moffitt's remarks reflect those of Mario and Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto who told Time this week that he has "a little bit of uneasiness" concerning the prospect of players being alone in their rooms using VR headsets which he adds is in "direct contrast with what it is we’re trying to achieve with Wii U."

Like Nintendo, Microsoft has also expressed no interest to rush into virtual reality. Of course, it could be the spectre of the doomed Virtual Boy which is making Nintendo reluctant to jump into VR waters.