A recent article posted on MyNintendoNews appears to have confirmed that when the Nintendo Wii U arrives in 2012 it will allow gamers to output the console’s visuals in 3D. Prior to this we have only seen the PlayStation 3 offer this in the home console market, whilst the recently released Nintendo 3DS allows handheld gamers to get in on the 3D action.
This news was revealed by Nintendo’s president, Satoru Iwata, he said “If you are going to connect Wii U with a home TV capable of displaying 3D images, technologically, yes, it is going to be possible, but that’s not the area we are focusing on”. As you can see the statment is quite carefully worded, but it at least proves that the technology within the Wii U will allow for 3D output, from here Nintendo can give the Wii U whatever 3D functionality it sees fit.
This was a slight shock because the news was never announced at E3 2011, we would have thought that Nintendo would have promoted such an important and exciting feature at the world’s most popular gaming expo as it would have helped build the hype for the Wii U. This news suggests that adding the 3D capability to its latest handheld has been seen as a success and it also suggest tells that Nintendo see 3D as the way forward.
Some people are still sceptical about 3D, myself included, however as long as it is an option and not a necessity we think that this is a good thing for the Wii U. Sony’s PS3 first arrived in late 2006 and last year firmware updates gave the console 3D capabilities, we think that if a 5-year old console offers this functionality Nintendo’s next-gen console needs to offer it out-of-the-box, if not it may be heavily criticized for being a next-gen console with previous-gen visuals.
We wonder if Microsoft will follow suit with its next-gen console, currently there is no 3D output offered by the Xbox 360 and no sign of an update bringing this either, sources have previously stated that the Xbox 720 may arrive in 2012, if this is the case we find it hard to believe that there will be no 3D capabilities as at this time Microsoft’s biggest rivals in the gaming market will boast this functionality. It is possible that like many, the guys over at Microsoft will see 3D as a bit of a fad which will die out, but we think it is far more likely that the 3D visuals will be available from its next-gen console in an attempt to keep everyone happy.
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