With a skeptical, confused reaction and unfavorable investor analysis, Nintendo is now saying it messed up in introducing the Wii U.
“We haven’t made any kind of blunder,” said Nintendo president Satoru Iwata in an interview with the London Evening Standard. However, “Because we put so much emphasis on the controller, there appeared to be some misunderstandings,” he admitted.
The fundamental problem with the press conference in which Nintendo introduced the new Wii U system was that the actual Wii U itself – the console, the box – was never shown or even mentioned.
“I should have shown a single picture of the new console, then started talking about the controller,” Iwata said.
However, he pointed out, “The console is not drastically different, and Wii U is about the controller. The console itself will be almost invisible.”
Iwata, who did a whirlwind of interviews this week at E3, told other reporters he was at a loss for words as to why investors reacted negatively to the Wii U, driving Nintendo’s stock price down – something that almost never happens when a video game company introduces a new piece of hardware.
Iwata isn’t taking all the blame, though. Reporters and bloggers who weren’t at E3 are distorting the picture, he said:
“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. 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.”
