Wii U: Nintendo kept own devs in dark

By Robert Purchese Published 1 July, 2011

Secrecy a detriment to first-party line-up?

Nintendo kept even the most senior internal developers in the dark about the capabilities of Wii U leading up to the console's E3 2011 announcement.

Yoshiaki Koizumi - veteran developer, director and producer of games spanning The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (the original) to Super Mario Galaxy - admitted that even he didn't have the full Wii U picture beforehand.

"As a developer at Nintendo, I had some information about the new system, but I didn't really have all of the information prior to the announcement at our presentation," Koizumi told Wired's GameLife blog.

"I only knew some of the things that were considered to be safe."

Koizumi had nothing to do with the 2D New Super Mario Bros. Mii demo shown on Wii U at E3. He works on 3D Super Mario games.

Nevertheless, Koizumi confirmed that his team will make a Super Mario game for Wii U.

It's still early days, though, and Koizumi's toying with the "opportunities" that Wii U presents.

"When I think about the two screens being used at the same time, it seems like an interesting opportunity to allow us to create a console game where two people are playing at the same time but can't see each others' screens," said Koizumi. "It's certainly an interesting approach, but I have to clarify that it's not something that we're working on just yet."

Eurogamer's Wii U preview from this year's E3 described a machine that's skilfully put together and easy to understand - providing you're holding it. "No question, Wii U is Nintendo having its cake and eating it. If the ingredients are right - on this showing, quite a big if - it could change everything all over again," Oli Welsh wrote.

Wii U struts its stuff.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 11 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Softie2k #1 11 months ago

    There are certainly more things you can do with it as I've mentioned before. Being able to view an RTS map by tilting the screen around looking for enemies would change RTS on consoles.

    If the architecture is similar to that of the Wii, programmers should find it a cinch.

  • PixelPirate #2 11 months ago

    by any chance, is this because not even Nintendo knew what it did?

  • Shikasama #3 11 months ago

    Everything about this at the minute is saying it is going to be at least 18 months before anything comes out worth playing. I do not understand the logic behind not giving developers tiem to build games on a console that come sout in a years time.

  • darc #4 11 months ago

    "Nintendo kept even the most senior internal developers in the dark about the capabilities of Wii U leading up to the console's E3 2011 announcement."

    Because they made it all up on the airplane en route, and then stuffed a DSLite into a controller shell in the hotel room that day? ;)

  • AlcohollicA #5 11 months ago

    No Mario game for launch then? :(

    I miss Nintendo consoles launching with amazing new Mario games. I don't really see where they can take the series that will be better than SMG2 though.

  • AdamAsunder #6 11 months ago

    The problem I'm forseeing is with all three major players concentrating on different experiences I fear that no third party developers will reach the potential for any of them.

    Nintendo haven't exactly been that prolific this generation so they will have to pull their socks up with this.

  • SBfistfun #7 11 months ago

    No surprise it looks shite then

  • CallousB #8 11 months ago

    "Everything about this at the minute is saying it is going to be at least 18 months before anything comes out worth playing"

    @Shikasama

    Oh I wouldn't say that. Quality wise it'll probably have the strongest launch titles of any Nintendo system...but those titles will mainly be Wii U enhanced versions of 360/PS3 games. The key for devs/Nintendo will be to ensure there is enough included to either pick the Wii U version over the 360/PS3 versions..or buy the Wii U version for the enhancements even if you owned the original.

  • skowhegan Verified Staff Writer, Eurogamer Network #9 11 months ago

    "Everything about this at the minute is saying it is going to be at least 18 months before anything comes out worth playing."

    Pikmin 3 at launch disagrees with you.

  • mcmothercruncher #10 11 months ago

    Jesus, first party software is pretty much all the Nintendo platform has ever had.

  • Geordiemp #11 11 months ago

    Its smells of marketing and vapour ware.....

    Maybe they had built a hand held to work with a PC for now, there was a hiddem wii U console or maybe not ?

  • HyperTails #12 11 months ago

    Seems a bit strange to be selective in telling your own people. Nintendo is taking wrong steps with this thing... hope it lands on its arse.

  • Geordiemp #13 11 months ago

    Its smells of marketing and vapour ware.....

    Maybe they had built a hand held to work with a PC for now, there was a hiddem wii U console or maybe not ?

  • GamesConnoisseur #14 11 months ago

    How many months or should I say years on average it takes to produce top 20 AAA titles for HD gen consoles?

    Can Nintendo then get quality AAA titles from both first and third parties in time for the launch period?

    Wii shovel ware titles need far less time of course, but we aren't expecting to see them so soon again on Wii U?

  • L0cky #15 11 months ago

    That doesn't just mean they didn't tell their developers about the new console. More worryingly it also means they didn't ask for their input either.

  • fizzyfish #16 11 months ago

    "it seems like an interesting opportunity to allow us to create a console game where two people are playing at the same time but can't see each others' screens"

    Despite being the perfect setup for a joke about Nintendo's online strategy to date, he means, of course, on the same console, in the same room. I recall plenty of split-screen gaming sessions where a friend and I have been trying to out-stealth one another and we ended up yelling "stop looking at my screen!" in tandem (Block Fort on MK64 springs to mind). I'm doubt that WiiU is the solution to that, though: I'm sure that the person with the special controller will still be able to sneak a peek at the 55" plasma TV in the room.

  • Coolwhip #17 11 months ago

    Not a smart move in my opinion. The earlier they release the console the better. And by releasing I mean releasing with a good launch line up. The WiiU can't afford a year of startup time like the 3DS seems to need. By then the next gen consoles will already be in the publicity. So keeping your own teams in the dark, just for the surprise factor is really stupid. Like a touchscreen is all that revolutionary anyway.
    Edited by Coolwhip at 01/07/11 @ 16:33

  • Zaiz #18 11 months ago

    I don't understand how "released in 18 months" and major third parties signing up sounds like vapourware. This is also a company with stupid amounts of money.

  • HolyJebus #19 11 months ago

    Uh oh, I predict a poor launch line up, which is the last thing Nintendo need if MS are going to try steal their thunder at the next E3.

  • asphaltcowboy #20 11 months ago

    This is pretty normal tbh.

  • AOFanboi #21 11 months ago

    "The earlier they release the console the better. And by releasing I mean releasing with a good launch line up."

    Pick early or a good launch line-up. You cannot have both.

  • Subdominator #22 11 months ago

    So nobody knew what Wii U would be? This is more and more looking like a desperate move to steal momentum from PS360 (which, let's be realistic, ain't gonna happen, their prices are way more competitive than the Wii U will be). I wonder if a Wii U actually exists or if it is until this day only an addon for the Wii. Cause we haven't seen anything running on the Wii U, only statements what it might do. Seems to be the Vitality sensor all over again, announcing new hardware just for the sake of showing anything at all. Because other than the Wii U Nintendo showed nothing for home consoles. Zelda, that's it for the Wii.

    @skowhegan: There is no statement saying that Pikmin 3 will be a launch title.

  • Reedo #23 11 months ago

    I suspect that we'll see a huge number of ports from PS3 and 360 at launch. Let's not forget those 30 million people who bought a wii but not a PS3 or 360 (or something similar to that figure). Even if only have of them buy a Wii U that's a big old market to sell games to. And if it's as easy to port to as Nintendo say it is, we'll probably be seeing a massive selection of games from third parties compared to what the Wii had.

  • BonzoBanana #24 11 months ago

    So many news stories about the Wii U but so little real information about what it will be really capable of. I don't really want or need that controller but what I want is a powerful Nintendo console that can bring up dated versions of classic Nintendo games and a few new games from Nintendo themselves plus hopefully a few classics from third parties. What I want to see is news stories about the technology inside the Wii U and videos of footage produced on wii U hardware. Most of the stories are about the gimmicky controller and crappy background stories about developers etc. Not many stories on the wii U console itself.

  • alcides #25 11 months ago

    but, they must have tripped and stumbled all over the place! who's going to clear up after them?

    most importantly this explains why there are no Wii U games at all.

  • Phishfood #26 11 months ago

    This shows how paranoid Nintendo are about competitors copying their ideas. We all remember how Sony called motion control a gimmick and then later they announce the sixaxis, then comes Move and Kinect.