Iwata Talks Nintendo Wii U Performance and Miiverse

Will the Wii U succeed? Will Nintendo be drowned out by tablet devices? Company president Satoru Iwata recently spoke to Japanese newspaper Nikkei on the current situation for the company's latest home console.

Iwata started by comparing the Wii U's concept to that of the original DS, reminiscing about a time where "when the PSP released, no-one thought that the DS would succeed." It took specific software to lift the console off the ground and cement it as the portable to get.

The Wii was a far simpler job to get across to seasoned gamers and casuals - "one that could be understood immediately". The console brought families together to play in the living room, instead of perhaps isolated in a separate kids room for example.

I am still thinking about increasing the gaming population, and it's something I'd like to spend my whole life doing.

With TV lifecycles increasing, Nintendo wanted to create a console that compliments the living room instead of causing this battle. The company began talking about another screen around 2008, but ended up eclipsed by the launch of the tablet boom a year later.

Even though we'd been working on dual screens prior to the release of tablets, it looked like we were just following a trend.

Iwata moved onto Miiverse and social gaming, and how Nintendo were told that "trying to make a social network now was a fool's errand", and why the company wouldn't just bolt on Facebook or Twitter. Reason being is that Miiverse is purely game-related, and specific to each title that users are playing - accessible from within each game - "we had to integrate it into our platform, and support it as a unified service".

Whilst there isn't an immediate timeframe for Miiverse on other devices like smartphones and tablets, Iwata did say "it won't be far away".

I couldn't tell my high school buddies that I had got a high score in Mario Kart. (Laughs).

Games shouldn't just be about the time you spend with a console, but also telling people that you passed something, or that you found a neat trick is interesting. If I were to put a name on it, it would be empathy.

He also acknowledged the system menu performance issues once again, reaffirming that Nintendo are aiming to improve the speed with starting up the console and shifting between menus.

Wrapping up his thoughts on Wii U and the future for Nintendo, Iwata described the company's longstanding philosophy - it's all about the smiles.

We aim to leave a smile on our customer's faces, no matter whether it's the game being interesting, a parent and child talking about gaming, or a grandfather being able to remain cheerful. Because it's worth doing, our staff can smile too. If our performance rises, so too our investors smile. If this chain is successful, Nintendo can be something worth keeping and continuing, and we can fulfill our responsibility to society.