David Yarnton on Wii U

 In case you dont know David Yarnton, he is the General Manager of Nintendo UK...

On consumers understanding the Wii U concept...

“When we introduced DS, the concept was hard to grasp but, when people played it, it made sense. Then with the Wii we introduced motion gaming to the world, and people looked at that and thought we were crazy. I think once people get their hands on the Wii U and start playing it, it will make sense. In some ways it has the best of both worlds with a touch screen controller, keeping the Wii’s motion gaming and then adding into the pie high-definition graphics. We’ve always looked at how people interact with the machine. You can have lots of power and really great graphics, but when you get down to the gameplay it’s really important that people can pick it up and play it. It’s something that the new controller really adds another dimension to.”

On developer interest...

“It’s really interesting talking to the developers; they are blown away by what they can now do with gameplay. The controller screen can actually have different views to what people are seeing on the TV. For example, the hide and seek game with the controller we have now gives the person hiding a different view to the people trying to find him. It opens up possibilities in that respect. It’s got a camera too, so you will be able to video conference or Skype with it potentially.

As the developers get their hands on it they will be able to understand it and take advantage of it. I think about playing Call Of Duty and calling in a bombing raid; with the controller you could have an overhead view. The experience that people get will be something they haven’t had before. There were limits to what you could do when making a simulation only with a single screen and a controller. You had no other choice but to make it that way. But now it can be more real, or seem more realistic. I think we’re able to add more realism in different ways, without making the gameplay too difficult.”

On the Wii U 'experiences' at E3 2011...

“Part of the reason that we are talking about these sample games as ‘experiences’ is because we are introducing a whole new concept,” says Yarnton. “We are trying to give developers an opportunity to see these experiences. We have already talked to a lot of developers and they are coming on board – as you saw with EA in our press conference. All the publishers and developers have seen it but we think there are still things that we haven’t realised that it could do.

When we introduced Wii we didn’t realise that people were going to be using it in physiotherapy. I’m not suggesting that’s the case with Wii U, but there’s always people out there who have brilliant ideas and we are simply giving them the palette, paint and easel to create whatever they want. There are many different facets that we haven’t even explored ourselves.”

On supporting Wii controllers...

“We’ve kept the good bits of the Wii with the motion controllers and the games it can play. There are still a lot of family games available, but we’ve widened the people. Not forgetting the traditional gamers and fans that we are giving them a lot more, but also not forgetting an expanded audience either.”

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