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NEWS FLASH: Hii bb ;3

June 14, 2011

Nintendo's top brass explain why Wii U was needed now, providing an always-on platform, and how HD graphics can hurt some games

"The way we approach hardware development is that when there are experiences that our internal development teams bring to bear that can't be executed with the current systems, that's a signal to us that it's time for exploration of new systems. And, Stephen, specifically in this case, our development teams were bringing forward two-screen ideas, two-separate-screen ideas. Ideas that leveraged the big 10-feet-away interface and the one-foot-away smaller-screen interface. That was the signal for not only a new system but one that took advantage of two separate screens." - Reggie Fils-Aime

If you're looking for a more juicy, detailed answer, Nintendo's Katsuya Eguchi has that for you.

"More and more people have access to high definition televisions, so the timing is right for a next-generation Wii that takes advantage of that technology and the access to it. The Wii only supported SD and at that time HD was not as common and readily available. But now, as more people have access to HD, we think the time is right to release an HD version of the Wii. With the Wii U, while we certainly will have that ability (to create a more detailed Mario game). Whether or not we take advantage of it or whether we see the sweat on Mario's brow, that's kind of [Mario creator] Mr. Miyamoto's call. The bottom line is that it's always our goal to make the best experience for the player... The New Super Mario Bros. Mii [Wii U prototype], that takes advantage of HD and detailed graphics in that, when you're playing, you'll know exactly which Mii is you. Because of the detail that's presented. There are many possibilities with the HD that we can take advantage of."

"Now that we have a Wii in HD—the Wii U—there are games like Zelda or Metroid or Star Fox, that definitely will benefit from the ability to display those detailed graphics. But there is games like Mario and even Animal Crossing where those details might take away from that experience. We have to explore our options."

Nintendo also wants to realize the goal that they had with the Wii, to have an always-on platform. The Wii may not have been able to reach that goal, but it also is showing them how to tackle it with their next system.

"When we first came out with the Wii, our goal was to have the Wii on all the time. The goal was to have users interacting with the hardware all the time. But the reality is most people only have one TV in their living room. Because of that, we had to share time. People might be watching a DVD or watching TV and when that was happening they couldn't interact with the game. So we needed a solution. We needed an idea that would alleviate that problem. And that solution was including a screen that was a part of the console and allowing people to interact not just with the TV screen but also on the screen that comes with the console. The idea of having people interact with [the console] all the time came from [the fact] that people buy the game and they play it. Once they're done with the game, they tend to put it aside and set the Wii aside. In order to prevent that from happening, the goal was to make sure people always had something fun to do on their console...so that that the feeling associated with that hardware was that, 'if i turn this on and interact with it I'm going to experience something good.'"

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