Iwata: It is untrue that there is little benefit for third-parties on Wii
This information comes from the Q&A portion of Nintendo’s latest financial briefing…
“In recent video game software market, there is a huge gap between what sells very well and what sells very badly and this is a challenge for the whole industry. Some people criticize that Wii business has been driven only by Nintendo’s great hits and there is little benefit for third parties, which in fact is not true, as the situation is similar even on non-Nintendo platforms, when we compare per-title sales figure like this. Adding to these facts, when we actually consider which platform owns more major titles of third parties, that criticism again loses the basis. But once people assume a fact they can hardly pay attention to the contrary bases. So I believe we need to ask foreign software companies for their cooperation by asking them to pay close attention to these facts and by explaining the business opportunities on our platforms, in order to build a cooperative relationship. I must admit we did not make enough effort to solve the bias or misunderstanding between third parties and us. I believe we have to make effort to make them understand that we can build a win-win relationship on Nintendo platforms with their good software titles that hold plenty of opportunities.” – Satoru Iwata
The situation with third-party sales on Wii is tricky. Some titles do quite well, but on other hand, there are a number of high-quality products that really should see better sales. It’s also interesting to consider that some Nintendo-published games have disappointing sales, like Excitebots: Trick Racing. Something tells me that Disaster: Day of Crisis performed poorly in Europe, too.
Thanks to Nathan P for the news tip!
