Wii U to have different online services than its rivals, says Nintendo boss

By: Muhammad Qasim Hassan

  |   December 3rd, 2012   |  

Uncategorized

The new Nintendo console Wii U has already hit the market in North America and Europe, marking the start of the next-generation era.

Irrespective of what the analyst had been saying ever since the console was revealed at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) earlier this year, Wii U has made a real solid impact in the market.

That, however, has not proved to be enough to win the critics over, who have now started taking a hit at Wii U’s online features and Nintendo’s eShop.

The Japan-based company has indeed made a bold decision by not putting in enough focus on universal achievements system and cross-game chat for its next-generation console.

Both the features have become somewhat of a norm for current-generation gaming consoles, with both Sony and Microsoft offering both universal achievements system and cross-game chat.

Living to its reputation, Nintendo has once again deviated from the on-going trend to differentiate itself from its competitors.

Commenting on the criticism over the lack of an achievement system and cross-game chat, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata explained that Wii U and its services have been designed in such a way so as to make it significantly different from what its rivals have done or offered.

In an e-mail interview with IGN, he stated, “We have not thought that offering the same features that already exist within other online communities would be the best proposal for very experienced game players.”

While the company has come under a lot of criticism because of abandoning what are seen as baseline requirements by many analyst and gamers today, the Miiverse has buffered the situation to an extent.

The unique online message board is serving as an effective bridge between Wii U users, allowing them to connect with each other and sharing creative content, which included amateur yet brilliantly drawn art via the unique tablet controller GamePad.

Known for setting new trends in the gaming industry and redefining the concept of gaming, Nintendo is one its way to revolutionise gameplay through GamePad. Taking interactivity to an entirely new level, the controller opens up a whole world of creativity for the developers to explore.

On first look, Wii U does not come off as a very advanced system in terms of graphics and performance. Some analysts have claimed that its CPU is slower than that of PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, though there has been no official revelation of specification of the hardware by Nintendo yet.

Nintendo, however, has contended that the system is much more powerful in terms of graphics and performance than many believe.

Furthermore, the company has asserted a number of times that graphics is not its main priority, as it gives more value to the overall gameplay experience than realism.

The formula has worked for Nintendo in the past and there seems to be hardly any reason to believe that it would be any different this time around.