Iwata doesn't think what's next will be noticed by consumers.
Nintendo hasn’t been in a power war with its rivals since the GameCube days and it’s not going to start now. The Wii was severely underpowered and while it sold brilliantly, above and beyond the competition it really didn’t have the power to play anything that wasn’t specifically built for it. Ports of big games just didn’t happen.
However with the Wii U that’s changing and in a new interview, Satoru Iwata has revealed that they’ve made the Wii U around the same power as current generation consoles so that they don’t miss out on these games this time around. We doubt that’s the only reason however.
So what about when the next PlayStation and Xbox hit and possibly blow the Wii U out of the water again? Iwata isn’t worried “My impression is that the things that happened with Wii vs. 360 or Wii vs. PS3 won’t happen again. If they decide to increase the spec numbers, will the consumers be able to realise the difference from today so much that they can understand it’s much superior to today’s machine?”
Iwata is betting that whatever power the next consoles have won’t be too much above what’s out there now and that the Wii U will be able to keep up. It’s a big bet.
Starting this week.