Acti: Wii U "friendlier" to core gamers

Last week's Wii U announcement might not have won over every gamer out there, but it seems Nintendo has done a good job of getting its message across to developers and publishers.

Following Itagaki's endorsement reported earlier today, Activision Publishing chief Eric Hirshberg is the latest industry figure to express his enthusiasm for the new system.

"It looks like this is a platform that's going to be even more relevant to the kinds of games we make," Hirshberg told IndustryGamers.

"They're committing to HD, greater processing power, digital infrastructure, connected universe at the back end... Those are all the things we need to make a state of the art experience for a lot of games.

"So we were thrilled to hear their plans and I think that anyone that bets against Nintendo does so at their peril. They're a pretty great company."

Hirshberg added that Activision developers were already tinkering around with ideas for the system, though he wouldn't confirm any concrete plans.

"I was very excited about some of the things that I saw in the Wii U because I thought it was an innovative take on the next gen controller and the next gen console. I was really excited to see Nintendo taking their console into something that I think is going to be friendlier to core games."

Activision's key rivals have also shown signs that they're willing to take Wii U seriously as a core gaming machine.

EA boss John Ricitiello climbed on stage during Nintendo's E3 presser to pledge his support; Ubisoft got its own third party E3 round-table to talk up Assassin's Creed, Ghost Recon Online and new FPS IP Killer Freaks From Outer Space; while THQ has confirmed plans to bring Darksiders 2 to the platform next year.