Iwata Reflects on 2009 Wii Sales

By Jorge Ba-oh 29.10.2009 12

Iwata Reflects on 2009 Wii Sales on Nintendo gaming news, videos and discussion

With Nintendo seeing the first drop in profit in four years, and Wii sales forecasts taking a 6-million hit, Satoru Iwata reflects.

The company president discussed the sales slump, noting that it'll take some time to recover from the drop in sales - and that that company didn't have any major "next big thing" to boost sales - like a new Mario game, something guaranteed to flog millions.

We were unable to show a new game to become 'the next thing.' In the game market, once you've lost the momentum, it takes time to recover...

...With the price drop, sales returned to a certain level, but they just did not reach the level of last year around this time. We decided that it would be difficult to sell enough to recover from the poor performance of the first half of the year.

In order to reach it, we'll have to move quite a large quantity, but it's a figure we released after having felt the momentum returning [based off the price drop].

For the holiday season this year Nintendo have Wii Fit Plus and NEW! Super Mario Bros on the way.

Given that a large number already own a Wii, there will be a point where sales start to simmer. However with a lack of many "must haves" in the last three or four months it certainly isn't helping Nintendo's situation. What do you think is needed to be done to boost Wii sales, and improve the line-up.

Thanks to Andriasang.

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JoshSL is offline. JoshSL 29.10.2009#1

Time for another price drop man.

The only ones who don't have the Wii yet are ones who are waiting for:

1) Games
2) Console colours
3) A more reasonable price

The bundle is attractive, but some people just don't want Wii Sports.

( Edited 12.12.2012 16:43 by Guest )

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PMD is offline. PMD 29.10.2009#2

Everything points to the Wii 2 being released in a couple weeks. They are abandoning ship with the Wii and moving onto an HD console to compete with the 360 and PS3.

( Edited 11.12.2012 08:00 by Guest )

 
Sonic_13 is offline. Sonic_13 30.10.2009#3

PMD said:
Everything points to the Wii 2 being released in a couple weeks. They are abandoning ship with the Wii and moving onto an HD console to compete with the 360 and PS3.

I assume you\'re being sarcastic and/or joking with that comment...


trgdr777 said:
I don\'t necessarily think they need another price drop. They should reduce controller bundle prices though. $70 per person for full control is way too steep especially for Nintendo to be pushing the Wii as a family console. Colors are a good idea too.

A controller price drop is the best thing they can do right now.

( Edited 30.10.2009 06:48 by Sonic_13 )

 
trgdr777 is offline. trgdr777 30.10.2009#4

PMD said:
Everything points to the Wii 2 being released in a couple weeks. They are abandoning ship with the Wii and moving onto an HD console to compete with the 360 and PS3.

lol good one

I don't necessarily think they need another price drop. They should reduce controller bundle prices though. $70 per person for full control is way too steep especially for Nintendo to be pushing the Wii as a family console. Colors are a good idea too.

What the Wii really needs IMO is games like a new Pikmin, new Star Fox, the new Kid Icarus everyone's been begging for, and a WarioWare Plus. We already have a lot of Mario games, and Metroid and Zelda are on the way, so why not give some other Nintendo stars a chance? You can argue that Pikmin and Kid Icarus will only appeal to hardcore gamers, but WarioWare (and StarFox if they do it right) will have a much wider appeal. Also if Lucas Arts gave us MotionPlus lightsaber fights you know people would go crazy for it.

Basically give everyone the games we were dreaming about at launch. The fact that more people are getting the MotionPlus makes this easier. I think a lot of people on the fence would go ahead and buy a Wii if they knew games like that were definitely coming.

 
meeto_0 is offline. meeto_0 30.10.2009#5

Nintendo first party games were quite lacking and not that diverse in my opinion this year. Not one massive title (not in terms of sales) but in terms of gaming world/universe. They were all very confined games: racing, boxing, mini sports, midi music etc. It was all to clinical: How do we look like we are thinking of the veterans and sell shit loads to the newbies.

I wish nintendo bought Rare and other companies. They shouldnt turn their nose up at companies just because their software doesnt push millions of consoles.

 
erv is offline. erv 30.10.2009#6

If core gaming is your root, you shouldn't neglect it - no matter how many different demographics you can get to play your console.

I hope this is a good lesson learned for them. Let's see whether we're going back to the days of pikmin, f-zero, zelda Smilie

 
Canyarion is offline. Canyarion 30.10.2009#7

erv said:
I hope this is a good lesson learned for them. Let's see whether we're going back to the days of pikmin, f-zero, zelda Smilie
Yep, the GameCube line-up was so much better. There are still great Cube games I haven't played yet.

 
Trepe is offline. Trepe 30.10.2009#8

I think the Wii is really suffering from the lack of big name and top quality third party games. All the games of note are Nintendo games. I was looking through the games in a game shop the other day and couldn't see one game that I thought I must have. The only games for Wii that I love are RE4, Mario Galaxy & Twilight Princess.

 
meeto_0 is offline. meeto_0 30.10.2009#9

If i was to look in a game shop: mario galaxy, corruption, GST, NMH, Zelda, RE4 are the big ones for me. There are secondary games like resort, little king story maybe a few others. But that list spans over 3years and only 3 of those are non nintendo. Third party support is weak. Next year I'm most interested in. I think it will be my busiest purchase year

 
Gigantorama is offline. Gigantorama 30.10.2009#10

I might be the only one, but I don't think Nintendo should fall back on old tactics or old games to try and turn this one around.

The Wii, like any console, needs GAMES. More games, NEW games, new franchises.

The Wii, as a console, and Nintendo, as a company, have recently been endorsing a play style that encourages short play times over long periods of time. That's not a bad way of looking at it, however it also means people need to stay entertained to continue to play the game and buy new software.

What Nintendo needs to do is develop some new strategies, some new games, that focus on more traditional extended play, with a lot of multiplayer features, to improve the longevity of a title. That get some of those out there and they're back in business.

Check out Gaming Goodies and be cool forever!
 
Mason is offline. Mason 30.10.2009#11

PMD said:
Everything points to the Wii 2 being released in a couple weeks. They are abandoning ship with the Wii and moving onto an HD console to compete with the 360 and PS3.

Sounds a bit extreme, but I do see where you're coming from. Something feels a bit 'off' at the moment. I wouldn't say couple of weeks, but I would look towards E3 as being a time when a new iteration is announced. And nevermind the comments that they 'don't know where they're going' with the next one - of course they do. They've probably known since just after Wii launch, their R&D costs have shot up during Wii's lifespan if I remember rightly.

 
michael (guest) 31.10.2009#12

make mario games(more)

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