One of the unique qualities of the Wii U is the Wii U GamePad, a new standard controller with a touch screen. We think that, together with the high Internet-connection ratio I referred to before, the controller has the potential to make TV smart, innovate the relationship among the TV, Internet and video game console, and then expand the TV-based entertainment in living rooms. Unfortunately, the Wii U has not fully expressed this potential as there is room for improvement in its toggling speed and usability.The existing online services have been designed for PCs and smart devices, and are not suitable for one screen shared by multiple users. You cannot feel comfortable while using them with your TV. This is probably why the trials to blend TV and the Internet have been not so successful.However, there are some services which will be more attractive with a large TV screen and handy screen. What could be one example is a new service called “Wii Street U,” which we announced in early December and in which you can enjoy Google StreetView on the Wii U. We will delay the release date from late January to mid-February to spend some more time on final development work. Please see the latest promotional video of this service.As you can see, through this application, Wii U enables you to experience linking your living room to various places in the world.Needless to say, the primary use of Wii U is to enjoy video games. We believe that, however, these kinds of services will help people widely understand the unique value of Wii U and increase the number of people who are interested in Wii U in a family and eventually lead to a bright future of this console.By the way, this service has been developed by a small team mostly using web technologies based on HTML5, not the so-called native codes only for Wii U applications. Both Miiverse and Nintendo TVii have been created as web applications utilizing browsing engines. The Wii U console is powerful enough to smoothly run such applications as developed in this way without writing any specific programs. We have been able to deploy various services for this console with less in-house development resources in a more timely manner than our previous platforms.Now is the time the development of video games for dedicated platforms requires a vast investment. Thinking of diversion of web services, creation of prototypes and development of independent label games, it has become more important to expand the range of software developers. At GDC (Game Developers Conference) to be held in March, we will show you some of our efforts to expand the range of software developers. They will include the development environment used for “Wii Street U” and some VOD services, where you can develop the Wii U software using web technologies like HTML5 and JavaScript and Unity, a cross-platform video game engine used by many users.Link