Nintendo of America’s president, Reggie Fils-Aime, admitted in an interview to GameTrailers (full interview above) that the footage used in their demo reel was from the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 versions of those games. “We’re talking a year away from when the system’s going to launch,” Fils-Aime said as the reason for using the footage. The footage included Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier and Darksiders II, and other footage shown during the press conference included Battlefield 3 (which hasn’t been formally announced for the Wii U by anyone). The games looked fantastic… but they weren’t being run on Nintendo’s hardware.
I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, Microsoft and Sony have bought been caught running games on other systems and showing the footage off as their own, but that still doesn’t make Nintendo’s subterfuge ok. On the other hand, this is a misleading and dishonest way to promote the new console, but at least Nintendo came right out and admitted it after the fact. The whole thing has left a bad taste in my mouth. Perhaps a reasonable price tag on the Wii U will get rid of that.
