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To Shigeru Miyamoto, the most exciting thing about games right now is online play and connectivity. This may sound strange coming from the Nintendo figurehead, whose company was among the last to jump into the deep end of internet-enabled consoles with Wii U and 3DS.
"For a long time at Nintendo we didn’t focus as much on online play because for many years doing so would have limited the size of the audience that could enjoy those features. But certainly now we see that so many people are connected to the Internet. It opens up a tremendous amount of possibilities."
Unfortunately for Nintendo, that expanded audience hasn't been as hot to adopt Wii U as it was its predecessor. NPD estimates put January's U.S. sales for the system at 59,000 units maximum, lower than any of the previous-gen consoles had in any month.
Miyamoto said he "would want to see it performing with probably a little more momentum," but he's not concerned with its long-term performance yet. Even though dedicated game consoles may lose some territory to mobile devices, Miyamoto said the company is investing in the living room for the long haul.
"Nintendo’s stance, over all, is that we don’t know where entertainment will take us next. We look at it in terms of what kinds of experiences do families want in the living room in front of the TV? Because we don’t think that families are going to go away, and we don’t think that TVs are going to go away."
