At an analyst Q&A session at E3 Expo 2011, Nintendo’s president Satoru Iwata said the company’s upcoming Wii U game console will not play Blu-ray or DVD video/audio discs.

Specifically, Iwata said that the “Wii U does not have DVD or Blu-ray playback capabilities. The reason for that is that we feel that enough people already have devices that are capable of playing DVDs and Blu-ray, such that it didn’t warrant the cost involved to build that functionality into the Wii U console because of the patents related to those technologies.”

For more information visit: www.nintendo.com