Nintendo ‘underestimated’ scale of HD development

Nintendo’s senior managing director Shigeru Miyamoto has admitted his company understimated the additional time and resources needed for HD gaming.

The company’s Wii U console has faced poor sales partly because some of Nintendo’s most popular franchises have yet to appear on the system.

Miyamoto told investors at a recent meeting with shareholders that though HD gaming means it takes longer to get games to market, his company is finding ways to overcome this challenge.

“When it comes to the scale of software development, Wii U with HD graphics requires about twice the human resources than before,” said Miyamoto.

“Please allow me to explain that we may have underestimated the scale of this change and as a result, the overall software development took more time than originally anticipated just as we tried to polish the software at the completion phase of development.”

Miyamoto believes that Nintendo is about to be done with this adjustment, and that the ‘Nintendo Web Framework’ announced at GDC 13 will give the company a unique weapon in the fight against rising costs and time requirements.

“We are almost out of this phase, and we are also trying to create something unique utilizing an easier development approach called ‘Nintendo Web Framework’,” he said.

The Nintendo Web Framework supports the development of HTML5, JavaScript and CSS apps on the Wii U, and will hopefully make the device a more attractive option for third-party developers.