Team Ninja: Wii U Development Like PS3, Xbox 360

The Ninja Gaiden developers share some details on their time with Nintendo's new console.

January 31, 2012 

Creating a new generation of gaming hardware is a complicated process, and the system inevitably goes through many phases along the way. According to Team Ninja developer Yosuke Hayashi, this is especially true of Nintendo's new home console, Wii U. Nintendo has expressed its intention to reveal the console in its final form at this year's E3 press conference - but the system is still in a constant state of evolution, according to Hayashi.

"They asked us what we would want from the hardware, and when we give them feedback we can see that they have definitely listened and are making changes," he said. "The hardware is still changing constantly."

Epic.

As for concerns over the potential difficulty of developing for the new system and its tablet controller, Hayashi brushed this fear aside, stating that developing software for Wii U is "very easy" and "almost exactly like on the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360."

In the same interview with NGamer magazine (thanks Eurogamer), fellow Team Ninja developer Fumihiko Yasuda chimed in to add that Wii U's touch-screen tablet controls are similar to those on the DS. The company developed Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword for the system back in 2008.

"We want to introduce some elements from that into the Wii U version," Yasuda added. Who knows what that means, or what untold features Wii U still has in store. One thing is certain - E3 2012 should be interesting.