In a recent interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal, Nintendo of America’s Bill Trinen opened up quite a bit regarding a variety of topics, including but not limited to the impending future of the Wii U console and some of its upcoming releases.
While it wasn’t the first point mentioned in the interview, Trinen seemed decidedly optimistic about the not-so-distant future of the Wii U.
We’re already seeing some positive signs around the Wii U ever since E3, really. There’s a lot of excitement around Splatoon and Mario Maker, and we followed that up with the release of Hyrule Warriors and Bayonetta 2, which are really top notch games.
Trinen subtly jabs about Nintendo’s console being the best option for exclusive releases:
If you look at the Wii U’s exclusive lineup of software, they’re getting rave reviews and you’ll see that the Metacritic user score tends to be even higher than the media reviews. So not only is the Wii U the best place to get exclusive content, players are also getting the most fun with it.
He continues, discussing the revival of retro-style games and indie-developed titles:
Over time, you started to see people getting interested and going back to that traditional type of gameplay like side-scrolling games…you get into the more indie developers where a lot of them grew up on side-scrolling gameplay and that’s where their passion was. It was so great to see that renaissance and the unique ideas from indie developers like Shovel Knight where they’re doing something really fun in the 2D space.
Trinen brought up Mario Maker a few times in the interview, and even discussed the possibility of Nintendo releasing similar games for more of its beloved franchises – Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Donkey Kong, and so on:
We have nothing to announce on that now. Mr. (Takashi) Tezuka is working hard on Mario Maker and the game is progressing really nicely. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun seeing what people are able to do with the game when it comes out. During E3, we had everyone from moms and kids to longtime Nintendo fans and newer folks who just got into gaming lately just having tons of fun with the way they’re able to create stages. Depending on how people react, we’ll see if the teams take a similar approach with other franchises.
Any thoughts? You can check out the full interview by clicking here.
