Nintendo Wii U

Nintendo Co. fell to the lowest in more than five years after the unveiling of its high-definition video-game console prompted some analysts to question the company’s ability to repeat the success of its Wii model.

“There were high expectations from the new version of the Wii and this fell far short,” Yusuke Tsunoda, an analyst at Tokai Tokyo Securities Co., said by phone today. “People had expected to see something more at a big event like the E3, but there wasn’t really anything more than what’s already reported.”

Nintendo tumbled 5.7 percent to 16,930 yen at the close of trading in Osaka. More than 2.2 million shares changed hands, compared with a six-month daily average of about 720,000.

Iwata signaled the WiiU will likely be priced at more than 20,000 yen ($250) in Japan when it goes on sale next year, the Nikkei newspaper reported today, citing an interview with the president. Nintendo is unlikely to sell the new console for the same price as the current Wii, the report cited Iwata as saying.

International Business Machines Corp.’s microprocessors will be used in the WiiU system, the Armonk, New York-based company said in a statement.Competition is increasing for Nintendo. Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)’s Kinect motion-sensing controller and Sony’s Move motion controller, both introduced in the past year, have spurred sales, according to industry tracker NPD Group.

E3 2011: But Sony already has plenty underway, insists president of SCE Worldwide Studios

Speaking to Develop, president of Sony Computer Entertainment’s Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida has revealed he is interested by Nintendo's recently announced Wii U, and said it will likely inspire Vita developers to carry out experiments with the newly named Sony handheld.

"It is very interesting the ways that Nintendo went with Wii U, and I was surprised it wasn't exactly as it had been rumoured," Yoshida told Develop at E3.

"Already people are starting to ask about linking Vita and PS3 to do something similar, in terms of using two screens, and having controls on the screen.

"That's very interesting, and we will have to experiment," he added, before suggesting that such work was already, to a certain extent, underway.

"Lots of the things that developers of Vita games are doing, as you may have seen, is experimenting with connectivities between Vita and PS3.

"The Wipeout [2048] team came up with their cross play ideas, and the other Vita teams have come up with ways of playing with two systems. It's just a matter of time, as we provide the SDKs to developers so they can make use of both PS3 and Vita, and they might come up with something interesting."

Nintendo unveiled its new console, Wii U, at its Press Conference earlier today, the morning following Sony's own event at which it named the system formally known by codename NGP.