Nintendo: Wii U reveal should have been clearer

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has said that he believes the Nintendo Wii U reveal wasn’t handled as well as it could have been, leading to misunderstandings over what exactly the console can do.

Speaking to the Evening Standard, Iwata addressed what he believed were the main problems with the reveal.

"Because we put so much emphasis on the controller, there appeared to be some misunderstandings. We should have made more effort to explain how it works,” he said.

"We haven’t made any kind of blunder, but I should have shown a single picture of the new console, then started talking about the controller. The console is not drastically different, and Wii U is about the controller. The console itself will be almost invisible."

Nintendo’s share price has fallen to its lowest in five years over the past few days, with analysts saying that the market expectations for the new Nintendo hardware were not met. Iwata noted that a disconnect between having first-hand experience of the Wii U and only having seen the reveal announcement could be leading to some of this confusion.

"There have been two groups of people writing about our announcement, those who have been able to experience the Wii U, and those who have not, and are simply writing about it from wire stories and pictures," he said.

"They cannot see how this can be a game changer. It reminds me of 2006, when we introduced the Wii for the first time. Here in LA, people enjoyed it, but in Japan, the atmosphere was very different. It seems to be the same this year.

"What Wii U will offer is very different, but I believe we have the strong potential to change the entire format of videogames and of entertainment.”