The console was conceived in 2001, as the Nintendo GameCube was first released. According to an interview with Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, the concept involved focusing on a new form of player interaction. “The consensus was that power isn’t everything for a console. Too many powerful consoles can’t coexist. It’s like having only ferocious dinosaurs. They might fight and hasten their own extinction.”

In 2003, game engineers and designers were brought together to develop the concept further. By 2005 the controller interface had taken form, but a public showing at that year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) was canceled. Miyamoto stated that the company “had some troubleshooting to do. So we decided not to reveal the controller and instead we displayed just the console.” Nintendo president Satoru Iwata later unveiled and demonstrated the Wii Remote at the September Tokyo Game Show.

he Nintendo DS is said to have influenced the Wii’s design. Designer Ken’ichiro Ashida noted, “We had the DS on our minds as we worked on the Wii. We thought about copying the DS’s touch-panel interface and even came up with a prototype.” The idea was eventually rejected because of the notion that the two gaming systems would be identical. Miyamoto also stated, “if the DS had flopped, we might have taken the Wii back to the drawing board.” In June 2011 Nintendo unveiled the prototype of its successor to the Wii, to be known as the Wii U.

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