Last year’s release of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate was a hit in both Japan and with most Nintendo fans here in the United States, plenty of people seem to enjoy the series for the difficult challenges it offers. Monster Hunter 4 has been available for some time in Japan on the Nintendo 3DS, with no Wii U version in sight. This has led many people to wonder if a Wii U version entitled Monster Hunter 4U will ever be available.
According to series creator Ryozo Tsujimoto, that’s probably not going to happen. In an interview with Eurogamer asking about the focus on the Nintendo 3DS for the fourth game, Tsujimoto had an interesting perspective on why his development team hasn’t focused on the Wii U this time around:
At the moment we’re focused on 3DS, purely because with the previous title, the 3DS version couldn’t go online on their own. There was a system to bring them online in conjunction with the Wii U console, but they were only local wireless play by themselves.
In 4 Ultimate, it will be online play just on the 3DS. We really want to see how having just a single platform online multiplayer game works out. So at this time we’re focusing on the 3DS version. Monster Hunter 4 in Japan was also 3DS only.
It seems like the team wanted to ensure the product they delivered was a full-featured product instead of relying on the crutch of connectivity through another system, which is how MH3U played on the Nintendo 3DS. Given the popularity of the 3DS in Japan, it’s not hard to see why the team wanted to make sure the game works as a stand alone product instead of requiring connection to a home console.
