Yoshida: Industry Has Changed Since 2006, New Competitors Vying For Consumers

Sony head describes Wii U as its own generation of gaming.

Sony head Shuehei Yoshida flat-out confirms the Wii U will not be as powerful as the PlayStation 4

We don’t know what the Orbis PlayStation console will look like, and what hardware it will run, but a tweet by Sony’s head says that it’ll definitely be more powerful than the Wii U. In an interview with Eurogamer, he also described the Wii U as being in its own generation due to the unique GamePad.

While Microsoft and Sony typically go for the high-end specs and triple-A games, Nintendo went with a niche that later became a mainstream craze. The Wii simply couldn’t bring third-party games because the hardware was a generation behind, though while that problem is going (at least for a year) with the Wii U Nintendo is now facing other issues such as a lacklustre online system.

More Competitors, Less Consumers

Rather, the Wii U is the next-gen Wii console according to Yoshida. And that’s accurate, I’d say, because Nintendo is still using the Wii brand to appeal to the audience who bought the Wii. The question is whether those people are still using the console, or it’s permanently off. And, is the Wii U’s GamePad as accessible as the Wii Remote? The messaging to the mainstream audience seem very confusing.

There was talk of the Orbis console at E3, with games confirmed to be in development and it may even launch after the Durango Xbox. I’d be surprised if Sony made that mistake again, because Microsoft’s console will have media partnerships waiting to go and probably better launch games than the PS4. There’s also a year to make up on the Wii U.

Yoshida also said Sony isn’t competing with just Microsoft and Nintendo, there’s Apple and Google and Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform. Apple has said it wouldn’t get involved in gaming in the traditional sense, but it would not surprise me if it launched a console. The App Store is great for mobile platforms, but I feel Apple would be able to incentivise developers to work on a console developing triple-A experiences. The simplicity would mean developers could port games and develop new ones easily, which would probably be based on the iOS architecture.