Wii U: Nintendo kept own devs in dark
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.