Nintendo’s new home console has left some scratching their heads, some hungry for more info, and the rest hopeful for a right-price right-time release that lifts the market. But what makes it special? Michael French spoke to the format-holder and the Wii U’s biggest fans in the industry to get some definitive answers
SO WHAT, exactly, does Wii U do? Many have asked this in the 12 months since its E3 2011 unveiling. Some with genuine curiosity. Others with cynical intent.
Wii U is an updated version of the Wii console, with vastly improved graphical capability, HD output and promise of a better, more modern online element.
And it comes with a handful of innovations: a brand new wireless controller called GamePad that packs everything you can think of into a five by nine inch handheld. Touchscreen, traditional gaming buttons, motion sensors, a camera, microphone and a near-field communication chip.
Does that answer the question?
Well, no. The answer, of course, is: it plays games. But you’d be forgiven for thinking so clearly. Pundits have certainly mulled over ‘confusing’ messaging since Wii U’s debut, to the point
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where Nintendo found itself hosting four separate presentations to demystify its strategy at E3 2012. A Sunday afternoon web broadcast for fans that explained what the handset does. The usual E3 Tuesday morning welcome that focused on 23 launch-window games. An evening roundtable with 300 press and the hardware designer. Then a briefing the next day for the forgotten middle-child, the 3DS. By Nintendo’s own admission, “there has been a lot to talk about,” UK chief David Yarnton tells MCV when we catch up after the device’s re-introduction at E3.
Undoubtedly, Wii U is feature- rich. While it may not be as simple in intent as the firm’s biggest successes like Game Boy, Wii or DS – it could be just as influential.
WII CARE ABOUT U
Put aside the technical gimmickry in the handset. Nintendo says its ethos
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UK families jumped on board the Wii very quickly and are now looking for a new one. David Yarnton, Nintendo
with Wii U is two-fold – to continue the work it did expanding the market with the first Wii, and also address the increasingly fractured ‘multi- screen’ society that cropped up in its wake thanks to smartphones, tablets and HDTV adoption.
“Nintendo is always looking at how it can make the game experience much better for people,” says Yarnton.
“With Wii U we are still looking at the social aspect of gaming. Wii games got the family playing, and got people that didn’t usually play up and having a go. Wii U takes that further. The extra screen can bring someone in, and get them involved, but give them either a very different or subtly different experience. It changes how, in a multiplayer scenario, they interact. You can see it when people play. That’s the real pleasure of it.” Wii U works as a single-player device alone, too. Players can stream a game from the base unit