Iwata: Wii hasn’t had a strong lineup in 2010 so far, DS needs a big hit
“Also similar to the US, 2010 has not seen a strong software lineup thus far for the Wii platform, while big titles were launched for other companies’ platforms one after another. In the US, Xbox 360 has been keeping the lead over PS3 this year. In Europe, on the other hand, while Xbox 360 was showing the decline, PS3 has shown increase since the fall of 2009. It appears that the benefit of third party publishers’ big multiplatform titles has been mainly contributing to PS3. On the other hand, the sales of Nintendo DS hardware in Europe are showing a year-on-year decrease, unlike the United States market. While Wii has been embracing big hit titles since the latter half of 2009, not many strong titles to significantly drive hardware sales have been launched for Nintendo DS for a while. So, we recognise that we are coming to the stage where we need to offer a hit title that can gain social phenomena and catch our customers’ attentions.” – Satoru Iwata
To be honest, the Wii and DS have both lacked big titles in 2010 so far. Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Metroid: Other M will change that for Nintendo’s console, though the lack of big titles for both systems in Japan especially has been troublesome.
Nintendo has been relying on the sales of New Super Mario Bros. Wii throughout the first half of the year. The same could be same of Tomodachi Collection, which is really the only first-party title other than Pokemon Ranger that has topped the charts consistently. There have been a few notable third-party games here and there, but lineups for the Wii and DS haven’t looked impressive in 2010 so far. And with the 3DS on the way, Nintendo will have to find a way to balance the development of titles for that portable as well as the DS.
