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Nintendo’s NX console will not follow the path laid out by either the Wii or the Wii U.
I’ve said it’s different and obviously a new experience,” Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima told TIME.
If you look back to the beginning of our conversation today, we talked about the transition from Wii hardware to the Wii U hardware and how difficult it is to explain to the consumer base what is different and new about the new hardware. It’s difficult to convince them to switch from their current platform to the next platform.
That being said, I can assure you we’re not building the next version of Wii or Wii U. It’s something unique and different. It’s something where we have to move away from those platforms in order to make it something that will appeal to our consumer base.”
Kimishima also vowed to support existing Wii U owners with ongoing software releases.
As you know within the game business momentum is key,” he added. When you have momentum, whether it’s a platform or software, sales increase. At this point in the Wii U lifespan, we’re looking at 10m sell-through for the hardware itself, which is just about a tenth of what we sold overall for Wii.
What I want to do, I think our first job right now is to make sure that the customers, those 10m customers who have a Wii U at home have software to play. And we need to make sure that they are satisfied with their purchase and continue to enjoy playing on this platform. So we can’t just abandon them.
Of course we are working on NX and looking at the experiences we can bring to that platform. But first our job at this point is to support the consumers who have purchase Wii U and make sure that they have software experiences available to them.”
