In an interview with news10, Nintendo’s Amber Mcollom moved to silence critics who question whether the Wii U will be able to win over core gamers, ” The Wii U and some of the video games we showcased at E3 will definitely bring back the core gamer, it will also really get the standard audience excited about gaming and keep them gaming. A number of titles we showed from third parties will definitely get some people excited”, said Mcollom.

While there had been talk that leaks regarding “project cafe” forced Nintendo to unveil the Wii U earlier than they anticipated, Mcollom believes the leaks weren’t a determinant in Nintendo’s decision to showcase the Wii U, ” I wouldn’t call it an information leak with the Wii U, I know Nintendo put out some information in advance of E3. This time round [Unveiling strategy] we decided to talk about the successor of the Wii before E3 to get people excited”, she said.

Third party development for the Wii U will be a key to the console’s success, when asked if Nintendo would force third party developers to output their games in 1080p, Mcollom said the following; ” Well I would say the Wii U is built for a 1080p system, so I would anticipate that the games would need to be required in that format”. If Nintendo have any aspirations of bringing back the core gamer, 1080p is essential in my opinion.

On backwards compatibility Mcollom says the Wii U will be able to play Wii games and users will also be able to download Gamecube games online, “Wii U will be compatible with Wii, the Gamecube discs will not be compatible with Wii U but a number of the games that were playable on Gamecube can be downloaded from Wiiware”, she said.

Questions still surround the number of Wii U controllers that can be used with the console, according to Mcollom Nintendo has no further information on the subject but for now one controller is the idea, “We don’t have anything to announce at this time on how many controllers will effectively work with the system but right now we’re showing it with one new controller”.

So in summary:

• Nintendo believe they will bring back core  gamers.
• 1080p will be desired for Wii U games.
• Backwards compatibility with Wii and some Gamecube games will be available for download.
• No update on the number of Wii U controllers available for the Wii U console.