Iwata is right. They need to be different and not fight Sony/MS on their own turf. That was the mistake Sony made this gen. While PS2 was the core/casual machine and Xbox was PC/core, PS3 launched directly targeting XBox's market and lost all their casual market to Wii and lost the war of attrition (which admittedly is still happening) for the core in NA to 360 (but won in PAL/JP). End result - greatly diminished presence in the video game scene.

No matter what, Nintendo cannot win a war of attrition for the core. We all know it. They shouldn't try.

The problem is, this statement flies in the face of what Nintendo was saying E3 2011 about winning the core back. It's more like Nintendo wants to make WiiU palatable for the core.

"Even when we were going to launch the Wii system, there were a lot of voice saying 'Nintendo should stop making hardware'," Iwata recalled, talking to Gamasutra."

"Naturally, some consumers are very sensitive about such a small difference in graphics,"said Satoru Iwata at the time, "so we will make efforts to make the most of the performance of the Wii U to keep up with technological innovations and not to make the system out-of-date soon."

@bolded He doesn't know how the Wii U will compare to them, and judging by the Wii U specs the GPU is going to have to be really good for it to compete, and even then the CPU and RAM seems very underpowered compared to what's expected and rumoured for Orbis/Durango.

I wouldn't say the PS1 and 2 were underpowered, they were not too far from the competition and actually weren't they in the middle of there generation power-wise? Could be wrong on that last bit.

The Wii found amazing success because it appealed to millions of casual gamers and types of people who were never traditionally gamers of any kind, like the elderly/families. This was all due to motion controls and a cheap pricepoint, together that's an incredibly powerful selling point. The Wii U will be cheaper than Durango/Orbis, but does the pad have the same selling power as the Wiimote did? I seriously doubt it. That's not to say the Wii U won't be a success, though. But tbh I don't know why we're on this topic since my post had nothing to do with whether the Wii U will do well or not.

It reeks of damage control from them tbh. And these statements have been coming out a LOT since E3 from them. Graphics don't matter...it won't be a big difference...we don't care if they are more powerful etc etc. I wonder if they have an idea of what the finalized specs would be for the next xbox and PS. Would be hilarious if we can get a leak from Ninty

so let me get this straight... one minute they're saying that the wii u won't be underpowered compared to whatever microsoft and sony decide to release... but the next they don't care?

why would they care about something they have no control over. Look at it this way. Once WiiU launches there is nothing stopping Sony or Micrososft pulling one apart and saying well this is what they offering, lets double it.

I bet if they annouced that their system would have 6 core CPU, HD 7770 GPU, 4GB RAM and 1TB hdd,  Sony and Microssoft would say lets double it. and WiiU would still be seen outdated

its a dog chasing it's tale scenaro.

Wow..... Deja vu, it feels like 2006 all over again...... Major kicking ass incoming again? We'll see....

It does not matter what Nintendo says. A lot of people will think they are doomed. But they will not be.
Thus, if people are not going to listen, you might as well tell the truth.

Mike from Morgantown

having a differentiator is good as it gives customers a reason to one thing over another.   ...but being soo different that you are incampatible with the rest of the industry is bad.  it is bad because the rest of the industry ignores you and as we saw with the wii -- no games, no consumers. 

there is a thin line nintendo must walk here.  you have to try and innovate but you also have to have the support of your collegues.  we'll see once MSony releases their hardware but EPIC has already said it won't support wii U with UE4.   ...that's not a good sign. 

Yep...you are right on the money. They have been talking about unreleased consoles of the opposition as much as they have talked about the wiiu at this point :P Right after the negative feedbacks for E3 conference started PR like this has been very very frequent from them. Let's be honest here, they haven't done a great job in doing the things you just mentioned. The best thing about the current wiiU line up for a non mario fan is the Rayman Legends...which I'm 100% will hit other consoles next year. They can say all they want about not caring....but if they didn't they won't be talking so much about it either :PI'm guessing they are worried about having a similar situation with the non nintendo core and 3rd parties next gen as they did this gen. Let's see how Iwata and the rest 'bring it' at the Nintendo event (what's it called again? The one they have for the wiiu launch)

And I saw someone above mention something about xbox and PS adjusting their specs to have a bigger lead over wiiu 'after' the system launches...so far all the specs known/rumored/leaked point to them aiming for systems that will be better than Wiiu easily. And besides I'm no tech guru but I doubt other than small things like RAM will be changed if MSony are to release their system next year.