Nintendo finally entered the HD era late last year with the launch of the Wii U. While sales started off strong, the console has plummeted to dangerously low levels ever since the clock struck 2013. According to Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, though, the Wii U just needs a little more time to make an impression.
In an interview with CNN, Miyamoto said that for many gamers, having a two-screen gaming experience in the living room might take some getting used to.
"The challenge that we had was if someone wanted to view television, then you couldn't play games. We wanted to have a second screen for Wii U that would make it possible for people to essentially play games even if something else was on the TV," Miyamoto said to CNN.
Miyamoto then drew some parallels to the Nintendo DS, a dual-screened system that dominated the handheld market during its lifetime.
"There was a period when we first released the Nintendo DS that people would say there's no way people can look at two screens at once," he said. "I almost feel like, as people get more familiar with Wii U and these touchscreen interfaces, that there is going to come a point where they feel like 'I can't do everything I want to do if I don't have a second screen'."
Like the DS, the Wii U has gotten off to a slow start. If Nintendo wants to replicate its handheld success, though, it'll need to deliver the same thing the Nintendo DS received just in the nick of time: More games. And better ones, too.
"The other thing I think about is how do we begin getting people to understand that and convey the usefulness of Wii U to them," Miyamoto said. For me as a game developer, obviously I look at Wii U from the perspective of what games I can bring to Wii U."
Pikmin 3 and a remake of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker are the big draws that Nintendo has in the pipeline right now, but it's going to need more than that to bring the Wii U into relevance. Expect to hear more details at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in June.
