Iwata on Wii U pricing and the competitions' stronger next gen consoles

Iwata, President of Nintendo

 In an interview with Gamasutra, Iwata reiterated that Nintendo has learned its lessons from the 3DS."The pricing of Wii U is going to be one of the most important elements when it is going to be launched." He went on to say "The environment is different. Wii U is going to be launching in a different environment than when the Wii was launched. Also, the involvement surrounding [mobile and social] businesses is different than several years ago."

By most accounts, the Wii U is pretty much on par with the Xbox 360 and PS3 in terms of horsepower, and the president of Nintendo doesn't care if the competitions' new consoles are more powerful. Iwata had this to say about the matter: "We just don't care what kind of "more beef" console Microsoft and Sony might produce in 2013." He then said that Nintendo is going to try to differentiate themselves from the other guys in terms of gameplay. The Wii was by far the weakest of the current gen consoles and yet the big N was able to outsell the Xbox 360 and PS3 by a huge margin. Iwata drew parallels to the current situation and the environment in 2006 when the small white marvel was going head to head with Sony and Microsoft's behemoths.

The Nintendo 64 and GameCube were both more powerful than their respective rivals, the PS1 and PS2, and yet Sony was the unquestionable winner of both console wars. Nintendo's philosophy of "gameplay over graphics" has served them well in the past, and it appears that they are sticking to their mantra  yet again.