Wii U GamePad nearly didn’t have its screen due to costs

It seems crazy but Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has revealed that the Wii U GamePad’s screen almost didn’t happen. Nintendo was worried that having a screen in the controller would drive up the consoles overall price too much.

Speaking to The Telegraph, Iwata admitted that “Sometime during that final discussion we almost gave up on the idea of the additional screen. This was due to our concern over the expected high cost, it may not have been feasible to create this and sell it at a reasonable price point for the consumers.”

However Nintendo figured out a way to make it all happen and when Iwata saw that Sony and Microsoft were doing similar things with dual screens (SmartGlass and Vita Cross-Play), it only made the companies decision easier.

He was surprised how quickly this time around the other two companies took to ‘follow suit’. “After our showing of motion control, it took three years for other companies to follow suit. But this time it’s just one year after our proposal, even before we brought out the actual product. I think that proves the great potential of what we showed last year.” Iwata said.

Almost didn't happen.

Nintendo’s gone with the screen now and hedged its bets, but if they were worried about price before, does this mean they have got the price down to a reasonable one?