Iwata talks Wii U launch lineup

Satoru Iwata and Nintendo have seen their critics come out of the woodworks in recent months.  After a poor showing in 2011 financially, the company is looking to get back on track with the 3DS and Wii U.  Iwata recently described this period for the company as one where it’s transitioning from two of its most popular platforms, into their next generation iterations.

While many people are focused on the hardware itself, and it’s specs, one of the most important facets of the launch will be in the availability of software.  In the most recent financial briefing from Nintendo, Iwata answers questions about Nintendo’s plans for first and third party games on the Wii U.

“Our consumers do not want to purchase the game systems themselves but want to play with the software,”  Iwata said in the briefing.  “To take this idea to the extreme, consumers reluctantly purchase a hardware system simply to play with the game software. Of course, the video game hardware systems of today embody a variety of functionalities within them and offer a lot of experiences to the consumers.”

Nintendo seemingly has learned a good lesson from the 3DS launch, Iwata continues:  “So, how will we be able to use this lesson for the Wii U? There is always a limit to our internal resources. The company now has to develop software for the Nintendo 3DS, has to prepare for the Wii U launch and has to finalize the hardware functionalities. With these circumstances in mind, if I said that an overwhelmingly rich software lineup would be prepared from day one, it would be too much of a promise to make. On the other hand, we are making efforts so that we will be able to make several proposals even from the launch period that can eventually become evergreen titles for the Wii U. We have learned the lesson that we have to make that kind of preparation for the Wii U, or the Wii U will not gain enough momentum to expand its sales. We would like to share additional information at the E3 show in June this year.”

Iwata did also note that E3 2012 will hold key announcements of third party titles, and how they’ll take advantage of the new hardware.