Interview:Iwata Asks: Wii U: Difference between revisions

|source = [http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/e32011/newhw/0/0]

{{Interview/A|Iwata|Up until now, there was an appliance called the television that was always in the center of the living room, and video games always needed to use that setup in order for it to be played. (Genyo) Takeda-san often puts it as if it's a parasite to the TV! (laughs) <br><br>But what would happen if video games had their own screen? That idea resolved a lot of the issues we had been feeling, right?}}

{{Interview/A|Iwata|When we were making the Wii Remote controller, we talked greatly about how we need to make it so people who had never played video games could use it without feeling overwhelmed by it. We thought that it shouldn't have that many buttons and control sticks, and thus the Wii Remote became something very simple in form.<br><br>On the other hand, when we were making this new controller, we heard from quite a few people who had seen what we had done with the Wii Remote, wondering why are we putting buttons and control sticks on it, and that it should be much simpler.<br><br>But Miyamoto-san, I remember you strongly opposing those comments saying, "what are you thinking!" I remember that moment clearly. Can I ask you to talk about what you think about people saying things like "I wish the A and B Buttons would disappear", and "you don't really need the control stick".}}

{{Interview/A|Miyamoto|But if we made it so that people can play with Princess Peach, you have to think about how to change her gameplay with her physical proportions, and if we went with Wario people would expect a different ability from him. But we're not able to make all the player characters Toads either. That's when someone brought up how great it would be if you could use Mii characters.<br><br>Although, I actually still debate by myself if it's ok for a Mii character to be the main character of a Mario game! (laughs) But I made the decision thinking that our customers would want to play with their own Mii characters the most. I hope people play it thinking that they're their own Mario, rather than their Mii.<br><br>And by the increased resolution, you're able to see the Mii characters even when they're very small. And in terms of gameplay, there's already that established environment where four people could play holding the Wii Remote sideways.}}

{{Interview/A|Iwata|Ah, because you have so many ideas flowing, they may disperse unless you narrow them down well. That's your dilemma.<br><br>Lately, it has become more difficult for game developers to see what they need to do next to make players happy. So far, I think developers have built in more content to make the games denser, and added quantity hoping that will please the players.<br><br>Now I'm really looking forward to what kinds of ways to play you're going to come up with Miyamoto-san, I have high expectations of you.}}

{{Interview/A|Miyamoto|If they can think of it that way, drastically new play styles can become possible, and what had been thought of as the limits of past play styles may change.<br><br>We debated for quite a long time about all kinds of things, but particularly, we discussed extensively about how we can talk about possibilities of what can be done for people who are connected to a network, but what kind of value it would have to those who are not connected.}}

{{Interview/A|Iwata|The other things is, shortly after the Wii console was released, people in the gaming media and game enthusiasts started recognizing the Wii as a casual machine aimed toward families, and placed game consoles by Microsoft and Sony in a very similar light with each other, saying these are machines aimed towards those who passionately play games. It was a categorization between games that were aimed towards core, and casual. I've been having a sense of disagreement as I personally think the definition of a core gamer is much wider, namely, someone who has a much wider range of interests, someone who enthusiastically plays many types of games that challenges different creative directions.<br><br>On the other hand, I certainly do not think that Wii was able to cater to every gamer's needs, so that's also something I wanted to resolve.<br><br>The keyword for our presentation at this year's E3 is "Deeper and Wider". With Wii U, I would like to offer this proposal with that concept.<br><br>Of course, with the Wii console I'm sure everyone would agree that we tried really hard to go wider, but even though we worked aggressively to go deeper in certain areas, the general public's impression that Nintendo was casual grew as time went by.<br><br>But first of all, your works have definitely laid the structural foundation of games that are considered core today, Miyamoto-san.}}

{{Interview/A|Miyamoto|Well…people in the media tend to categorize into different genres, the core and casual because it's easier to characterize it that way. But as you can see with games like The Legend of Zelda, Nintendo is fully staffed with members who are into working on a very core level of detail. And because we know that, we haven't really taken those accounts seriously.<br><br>But one of the key reasons that such things as the core and the casuals exist today is that we decided not to adopt HD on the Wii console. Of course, besides that there are things like issues with the controller and the challenges that it brings, network functionalities and many other things, but I think HD was the biggest factor that everyone was able to clearly understand the difference.<br><br>In terms of the HD capabilities, Wii U can do something similar, and on top of that, it is equipped with this new controller that adds an entirely new structure to games. I think this is an opportunity for those games that were considered to be core up to now, to evolve into something even more interesting structure. In that sense, I do wish all kinds of games would be released, regardless of the debate over core or casual.}}

{{Interview/A|Iwata|That core vs. casual debate seems like something that can never see a resolution, but with Wii U, I have a feeling that it all may change. I even feel that the barrier that separated the two genres was only something psychological, just an impression that people had towards them. For example, The Legend of Zelda games were something geared towards the toughest audience, and it has been so from the beginning. So it's not like Nintendo doesn't have it in us. But there are quite a number of people who assume that Nintendo is the equivalent of being casual.<br><br>If we are able to break those psychological barriers with Wii U, I feel like we will be able to take our goal of expanding the gaming population even further to the next step. It would even be possible to expand our customer base and bring in more people, and out of those new people, there will be those who will find certain controls or elements of deeper gameplay intriguing, and eventually will become passionate game fans. That was the way the history of video games has been, and I want to keep the tradition going so it doesn't fade away. That, I think is the true meaning of "a game for everyone". A game for everyone isn't just wide, but also very deep. That's how it will become everyone's game.}}

{{Cat|Zelda Wii U Interviews|2011-06-09}}