Nintendo kept even the most senior internal developers in the dark about the capabilities of Wii U leading up to the console's E3 2011 announcement.

Yoshiaki Koizumi - veteran developer, director and producer of games spanning The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (the original) to Super Mario Galaxy - admitted that even he didn't have the full Wii U picture beforehand.

"As a developer at Nintendo, I had some information about the new system, but I didn't really have all of the information prior to the announcement at our presentation," Koizumi told Wired's GameLife blog.

"I only knew some of the things that were considered to be safe."

Koizumi had nothing to do with the 2D New Super Mario Bros. Mii demo shown on Wii U at E3. He works on 3D Super Mario games.

Nevertheless, Koizumi confirmed that his team will make a Super Mario game for Wii U.

It's still early days, though, and Koizumi's toying with the "opportunities" that Wii U presents.

"When I think about the two screens being used at the same time, it seems like an interesting opportunity to allow us to create a console game where two people are playing at the same time but can't see each others' screens," said Koizumi. "It's certainly an interesting approach, but I have to clarify that it's not something that we're working on just yet."

Eurogamer's Wii U preview from this year's E3 described a machine that's skilfully put together and easy to understand - providing you're holding it. "No question, Wii U is Nintendo having its cake and eating it. If the ingredients are right - on this showing, quite a big if - it could change everything all over again," Oli Welsh wrote.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-07-01-wii-u-nintendo-kept-own-devs-in-dark

If there's anything Nintendo is good at, it's keeping their plans a secret. I don't really see this as a big deal, just a failsafe to make sure that too much information on the Wii U wasn't leaked before E3.

has two wii-u controllers been confirmed?  i thought nintendo say the wii-u controller will not be sold seperately?

...but i do like the idea if possible.  why do i feel like one of the only guys on this site that actually likes the looks of the controller (minus the analog nubs).  aren't i suppose to be the hater not our resident nintendo fans?

This is actually very bad news, I mean, these devs will only have 1 year to develop a game before Wii U launches. That will translate in tech demo-like games, very rushed and unpolished games or simply games not ready until 2014 or so. I doubt they can make large scale games in HD (which they never worked on before) in less than a year.

Malstromism, again. They hate the controller because it has analogues period, nubs or no. They see it as a massive psychological barrier that will tell consumers of the Wii to stay the hell away from Wii U

I like the idea of the controller, i'm just not head-over-heels about it. Need to see more practical utilizations before i get amped.

Wow why would Nintendo keep their own devs in the dark about the console, that's just Sparta!

yeah, i know, you're right.  i just don't get dismissing it altogher just because it might not "win" the next gen.  i like whoever that one guy was said that this controller is the "swiss army knife" of controllers.  what i grew to dislike about the wii-mote was how limited and tacted on it felt in certain genres (smash bros for instance was impossible with a wiimote imo).  this thing is just soo damn robust and versititle while at the same time creating new opportunities like the idea above that would truely enhance competitive local multiplayer. 

Probably as a means to keep details of it from being leaked before Nintendo wants them to be ...

At this point in time Nintendo wants everyone to be focusing on the controller and getting curious about (and used to) the concept. While they can't fully prevent it from happening, they don't really want people to focus on the technical abilities of the console or the services that will be provided; and they may want people to fully digest the Wii U controller before they put it into the context of a broader strategy.

Hypothetically speaking, if it was leaked that the Wii U was 4 to 6 times the processing power of the HD consoles, the details of their online service were made public, or their unconventional market strategy was published that is all people would talk about.

Besides that, while I'm sure that Microsoft and Sony have sources that have given them a more complete picture of what the Wii U is than we currently know, any part of their strategy that they can keep from being made available to Microsoft and/or Sony until it is too late for them to respond to it is a huge benefit to Nintendo.

well it was kind of obvious look at what happened with the smash bros announcement they announced the game in a situation where the game creator was busy with another project and didn't have plans or a design team ready and now says it may be years away from release... nintendo really seems to be handling this badly

hmm i wonder what games we will have at launch from Nintendo. I thought we would have a Mario launch game for the first time sense the N64