In an interview with Gamasutra, Satoru  Iwata discusses how development for the Nintendo Wii U started mere months after Wii released. By 2007 there where already working prototypes of a dual screened console experience, but not exactly the way we know Wii U today.
“Considering how expensive screens were then, it did not make sense to have this big-sized LCD. We would not have been able to come up with a reasonable price point. ”¦ We had not decided when we were going to launch the new console [at that point], but we knew we needed to be flexible.”
Even crazier still, the Wii U tablet could have been it’s own standalone handheld, but concerns of cost and battery life are a few reasons why the controller shows images processed on the Wii U console itself.
“During the roundtable discussions there were such arguments about should we make it capable of being a standalone system or should we make it work only with the [base console] system. We came to the conclusion that this controller is only going to show the images generated and processed by this hardware unit ”“ and sent from the hardware unit wirelessly. That means sharper graphics. A battery couldn’t do that.”
You can read the article for yourself here. Iwata goes on to talk about Wii U third party support and continued backing of Wii in it’s twilight years.
After the E3 dust has settled, how do you feel about Wii U?
