Miyamoto: why the Wii U didn’t catch on, not directly involved with hardware for the NX
Wii U
Last gen, Nintendo was the uncontested leader on the home console market, with over 101 million consoles sold worldwide. But this gen, the King is no more, and the Wii U will most likely end up as one of the worst selling Nintendo platforms ever… quite the contrast compared to the “glorious” years of the Wii and Nintendo DS.
Of course, everyone have their own theories on what went wrong, including Shigeru Miyamoto himself. For him, the Wii U didn’t catch on because people never really understood the concept behind the Wii U, and what Nintendo was trying to do:
I think the assumption is we were trying to create a game machine and a tablet, […] a game system that gave you tablet-like functionality for controlling that system and give you two screens that would allow different people in the living room to play in different ways.
But with the rise of tablets (which were already quite popular and widespread when the Wii U came out), which were getting more and more functionalities, Nintendo’s approach didn’t quite work out. But even now, Shigeru Miyamoto “still feel it was a very novel approach—and a very interesting idea”.
Project NX
Shigeru Miyamoto does believe that with Project NX (Nintendo’s new dedicated game platform), Nintendo will be able to “catch the attention of a large number of players again and get them excited”. For him, the company is constantly thinking from the perspective of the players, trying to find way to “capture that excitement and passion”.
But whatever manages to get players excited in the Project NX Hardware, it most likely won’t come from Shigeru Miyamoto himself. The man himself confirmed that he wasn’t directly involved with the hardware aspects of Project NX:
“I’ve pulled myself back out of some of the hardware section and I’m really focused on some of the software that I’m involved in—for example, the new Starfox game. Of course I am observing and looking at the hardware, but I am not actively participating and making decisions.”
Apparently, Nintendo did start talking with third-party publishers at E3 this year, and according to Fortune (who got to interview Shigeru Miyamoto), the reception was mostly positive.
Source: Fortune
