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Nintendo on lack of Nintendo TVii and other features at launch, future plans, no more 1st party Wii games
A portion of a GameSpot interview with Nintendo's Bill Trinen...
GS: What kind of impact do you think that's going to have on people buying it tonight who take it home and want to use some of those features?
BT: To be honest, I don't think that there's going to be a tremendous impact because the people are going to be going home tonight and they're going to be playing games; they're going to be experiencing Miiverse for the first time. And that, I think is going to give them a lot to be looking at and kind of figuring out. There's Wii U chat that's there day-one and Netflix is also going to be a part of the day-one offering. eShop, along with a ton of content, is also there day-one. So it's really more about just making sure that that Nintendo TVii service is absolutely perfect when it launches. Because we think it's probably more important that people sit down with it the first time and have a really great experience and want to keep using it than necessarily trying to push it out too soon and have people dissatisfied with it.
GS: Can you talk about the 12-month roadmap for Wii U, generally?
BT: I haven't thought about it a whole lot. We've been focused on launch, obviously, and just trying to get through today.
GS: There's no vision?
BT: Oh, I wouldn't say that. The first question is how does it feel? And it feels great to be launching [Wii U] today. But on the other hand, I know that come November 19, it's not like I'm going to have nothing to do (laughs).
GS: We were talking earlier; it's kind of like the finishing line and the start…
BT: It is. And the other night [Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime] described it as mile 14 of a marathon. You feel great about getting there, but there's still a lot to do. Obviously, E3 is going to be coming and that'll be sort of our next opportunity to go into a lot of detail on what's going to come after E3. Between now and then, you can probably surprise people with a Nintendo Direct here or there. In terms of the near-term vision, first and foremost we had the realization that we needed to make sure that we've got a steady stream of content coming not just at launch, but also right after launch to keep people engaged and to keep people interested in the system.
GS: Is Nintendo developing internally any Wii games? Are there any projects in the pipeline?
BT: No, there are not right now.
Full interview here
GS: What kind of impact do you think that's going to have on people buying it tonight who take it home and want to use some of those features?
BT: To be honest, I don't think that there's going to be a tremendous impact because the people are going to be going home tonight and they're going to be playing games; they're going to be experiencing Miiverse for the first time. And that, I think is going to give them a lot to be looking at and kind of figuring out. There's Wii U chat that's there day-one and Netflix is also going to be a part of the day-one offering. eShop, along with a ton of content, is also there day-one. So it's really more about just making sure that that Nintendo TVii service is absolutely perfect when it launches. Because we think it's probably more important that people sit down with it the first time and have a really great experience and want to keep using it than necessarily trying to push it out too soon and have people dissatisfied with it.
GS: Can you talk about the 12-month roadmap for Wii U, generally?
BT: I haven't thought about it a whole lot. We've been focused on launch, obviously, and just trying to get through today.
GS: There's no vision?
BT: Oh, I wouldn't say that. The first question is how does it feel? And it feels great to be launching [Wii U] today. But on the other hand, I know that come November 19, it's not like I'm going to have nothing to do (laughs).
GS: We were talking earlier; it's kind of like the finishing line and the start…
BT: It is. And the other night [Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime] described it as mile 14 of a marathon. You feel great about getting there, but there's still a lot to do. Obviously, E3 is going to be coming and that'll be sort of our next opportunity to go into a lot of detail on what's going to come after E3. Between now and then, you can probably surprise people with a Nintendo Direct here or there. In terms of the near-term vision, first and foremost we had the realization that we needed to make sure that we've got a steady stream of content coming not just at launch, but also right after launch to keep people engaged and to keep people interested in the system.
GS: Is Nintendo developing internally any Wii games? Are there any projects in the pipeline?
BT: No, there are not right now.