Nintendo’s Miyamoto: We’re Already Working On The Wii U Successor

Say what you will about Nintendo, but you can’t say they’re a company that likes to sit still. Even as the Japanese gaming giant tries to right the ship with regard to the Wii U, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto says that they’re already at work on Nintendo’s next home console.

Last week, Miyamoto, the legend behind Mario, Zelda, and countless other Nintendo properties, sat down with the Associated Press to discuss Nintendo’s fortunes of late. It’s no secret that Nintendo has been struggling recently, with the Wii U lagging far behind Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One. Recent months have seen an uptick in Wii U sales, with the Japanese gaming giant releasing some solid titles in the form of Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. Nintendo still has a long way to go, though.

Miyamoto is aware of that, and the Nintendo game designer says that the company is not only preparing to release more material to make the Wii U more attractive, but also hard at work on the Wii U’s successor.

“We’re focused on providing a robust line-up of Wii U software for next year,” Miyamoto told the AP. “For the time being, our focus is on the Wii U hardware, but Nintendo as a whole has groups working on ideas for new hardware systems. While we’re busy working on software for the Wii U, we have production lines that are working on ideas for what the next system might be.”

Miyamoto’s statement on the Wii U’s successor doesn’t give away too much, but it does confirm some things that some might have thought were up in the air before. The Wii U will, it appears, have a successor, and Nintendo is already at work on that device. That’s good news for Nintendo fans, but likely disappointing to any observers expecting Nintendo to abandon hardware production in favor of releasing its beloved characters on other platforms.

Assuming a five-year console life cycle, the Wii U is approaching middle age, and it has reportedly moved fewer than 10 million units in the two years since its release. By comparison, both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One have sold more than 10 million units, even though they’ve been out for only one year.

Miyamoto remains upbeat on the Wii U’s prospects, and there is likely reason for him to be so. The next year will see Nintendo releasing the next installment of its Zelda franchise, and early videos for the title have sparked a good deal of fan interest. Miyamoto himself is also working on a new Star Fox game, which will see release before the next Zelda game.

There is also, of course, Mario, perhaps the most popular video game character in the world. It seems likely that the next year or so will see some word of a new single-player Mario game in the works. And there’s always Metroid…

[Lead image via BadGames.it.]