Iwata: ‘Nintendo Land’ has not fulfilled the same role as ‘Wii Sports’

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http://media.edge-online.com/wp-content/uploads/edgeonline/2013/04/Iwata-610x343.jpg (http://media.edge-online.com/wp-content/uploads/edgeonline/2013/04/Iwata.jpg)During an analyst briefing (http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/130612qa/index.html), Nintendo president Satoru Iwata discussed some of the challenges that the Wii U faces in regards to its competition with the upcoming Xbox One and PlayStation 4.In particular, he talked about how people don’t seem to quite understand the role of the GamePad. “I would say that ‘Nintendo Land’ has not fulfilled the same role as ‘Wii Sports’ did when we bundled it with Wii,” he said, attempting to explain why consumers haven’t accepted the GamePad in the same way they gravitated towards the motion controllers of the previous generation.“Of course, we won’t remain silent and do nothing,” he continued. We are going to release a variety of Wii U software, and with each title, we would like to show how convenient and delightful it is to have the Wii U GamePad controller, and how it changes the gaming experience.” He then pointed to Pikmin 3 as a game that could fulfill that role.As for third party support, Iwata said Nintendo plans on continuing to developer quality software to sell the console, which will, in turn, draw outside developers in to develop for the platform. In order to do so, however, Nintendo must compete with the ever-growing smartphone and tablet gaming scene. Iwata knows this.“Under these circumstances, we feel that it is important to offer games that are even more polished than before in terms of quality to have consumers buy our products, understand the value that they offer and recommend them to others by word-of-mouth,” he said. “It now requires incredibly high-quality products to satisfy consumers to the level where they feel compelled to recommend them to others; the barriers are indeed higher than before.“We had to push back the releases of some games because it has become more difficult to satisfy the quality standards that we feel are necessary for games to satisfy before they are released. It was not because it took us more time to take advantage of what is unique about the hardware.”It is important to note, however, that Iwata repeatedly stated that there are, in fact, third party developers actively making games for the Wii U.

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