NINTENDO CONFIRMS NO iOS GAMES

Nintendo’s president Satoru Iwata recently reiterated that Nintendo will not develop games for Apple’s iPad, iPod and iPhone, despite recent pressure from investors to jump on the iOS bandwagon. “This is absolutely not under consideration,” Iwata told the Japanese news outlet Nikkei following the company’s recent 3DS press conference. “If we did this, Nintendo would cease to be Nintendo. Having a hardware development team in-house is a major strength. It’s the duty of management to make use of those strengths. It’s probably the correct decision in the sense that the moment we started to release games on smartphones we’d make profits. However, I believe my responsibility is not to short term profits, but to Nintendo’s mid and long term competitive strength.” Several analysts have argued that Nintendo will continue to struggle against mobile gaming platforms that offer a larger selection of free or $0.99 games. Nintendo recently dropped the price of the 3DS to $169.99, which helped increase sales, but the system is still expected to miss sales targets for the year. According to AdriaSang, which translated the Nikkei article, Iwata believes Nintendo’s current business model works and he expects that to be reflected during the holiday shopping season.

NINTENDO'S IWATA CONFIRMS ONE Wii U CONTROLLER PER CONSOLE

Nintendo's tablet-esque Wii U controller raised a few questions when it was announced at E3. Questions like, "What kind of crazy games are going to use that thing," and "How much will a second controller cost me?" The latter, at least, has been answered. Nothing. You don't need one. Nintendo's Satoru Iwata recently said in an interview that games enlisting more than one Wii U controller aren't being considered just yet -- although they are possible.

Sources are saying Iwata told Diamond Online that the Wii U can technically support multiple screen-controllers, but that additional slabs would be too expensive to sell on their own. Iwata went on to say that the console would ship with only one, and that game developers should design titles under the assumption that each console will use a single Wii U controller. Player two will have to settle for a good 'ol Wiimote, and even Satoru himself admits that there are plenty of those around.

NINTENDO WII U WILL NOT PLAY DVD OR BLU-RAY DISCS

When we discovered that the Wii U would also use a brand new optical disc format for its games, we wondered whether or not it would be able to play DVDs or Blu-ray discs. We figured it would be likely that Blu-ray discs would be excluded, but expected DVDs to work. Unfortunately, Nintendo says that the Wii U won’t play either type of optical disc.

We know that the Wii U will use Nintendo’s new proprietary game format, and that each disc will be 25GB in size. That’s close to, but not exactly the same size as a Blu-ray disc, and Nintendo has already said that the drives in the Wii U are not Blu-ray drives. However, most people expected that the Wii U would be able to at least play standard DVDs. Now, Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata says that won’t be the case.

In an interview, Iwata said that the Wii U “does not have DVD or Blu-ray playback capabilities.” It may not matter very much considering most people already have a device in their living room that can play DVDs, and many have Blu-ray players. Iwata also pointed to the added cost of building in DVD playback functionality into the Wii U as another reason why they didn’t want to include it. They decided they could keep prices down a bit by removing a feature that most people probably already had.

NINTENDO PRESIDENT TALKS ABOUT THE Wii U

Nintendo took some inspiration from the TV remote for its Wii controller, and it apparently thinks its new Wii U controller could well be the "TV remote of the future." That's just one tidbit from All Things D's sitdown with Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, who also talked more broadly about the Wii U's new role in the living room.

As evidenced by E3, that will include catering to more hardcore gamers than the Wii did, but Iwata says the Wii U is also an effort to take some of the couch time back from folks playing games on tablets, smartphones or laptops. To that end, Iwata says that Nintendo's mission is to "shorten the distance between people and gaming" and remove some of the barriers involved with console gaming, further adding that it's also trying to "reach out to the people who are not interested in video games."

Though it's not saying much about it, Nintendo's no doubt hoping to win back a few investors as well. As you may have noticed, the company's stock slipped significantly following its E3 announcement and, while it's bounced back a bit since, it's still well off its Wii-fueled heights of recent years.

NINTENDO 3DS SALES WEAKER THAN EXPECTED ACCORDING TO NINTENDO PRESIDENT

Speaking during an investor briefing on Tuesday, Nintendo’s president Satoru Iwata said that sales of his firms new 3DS portable gaming system failed to meet expectations. “Sales of the 3DS have been weaker than expected since the second week of launch in the US and Europe,” Iwata said while discussing the device’s launches in Europe, the United States, and in Japan.

Nintendo had expected to sell 4 million units last quarter, but sales fell short at 3.61 million units. Iwata said that he hopes sales will increase as much as 40% during the next year, AFP reported.

Reviews of the device are pretty unanimous that the system doesn't offer enough features to justify the high $250 price tag.