Nintendo vows to not repeat the mistakes of the past.
Iwata commented recently on the lack of momentum for Wii, citing poor third-party support and no social networking functionality.
During the 72nd annual shareholders meeting at Nintendo HQ in Tokyo, Iwata was grilled on the poor showing of multiplatform titles for Wii, and asked how he intended to solve the problem on Wii U. Iwata replied, "We have not successfully kept the momentum of the Wii for about the last two years because third-party publishers have released a smaller number of game titles and Nintendo has also decreased new games for the platform in preparation for the launch of the Nintendo 3DS and the Wii U. As the Wii has no such system as the “Miiverse” in the Nintendo Network mentioned earlier today, in which consumers have a chance to encounter new games in communication with others, the momentum temporarily provoked by a new game has easily been diminished."
Although Iwata was careful not to promise that every desirable multiplatform title would make it to Wii U, he declared that the technology gap between Wii U and future consoles released by competitors would not be nearly the size of the gap between Wii and it's current competitors.
Regarding price of the Wii U, Iwata said "As the structure of the product called the Wii U is as if we are including both a video game console and a handheld device, if we were not careful about how luxurious both of them were, we could end up having to offer the price of the two hardware systems combined, which would not be an acceptable price for the consumers. We had to design it by balancing the performance and the costs."