It’s beginning to look like third party publishers will be focusing more on the Wii in 2009. Nintendo fared far better than many game companies and developers in the recent economic downturn. In a recent conference call with Gameindustry.biz Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo, commented, “A number of major software manufacturers are reporting that they are experiencing a financially challenging time or that they will be scaling down their operations. On the other hand… I doubt that anyone in the industry was able to correctly forecast the current sales situation of Wii.”
Iwata admits that even he did not think that the Wii would sell over 10 million units in the United States alone. “Of course, Nintendo was hopeful that we would make this new system the best selling hardware in the next generation. Even so, if you ask me if we were able to foresee today’s situation, I am not that optimistic so I have to admit that today’s situation is exceeding even our original expectations.”
He also speculated that game developers probably didn’t think the Wii would sell as well either. “To the third party software manufacturers, the surprise must be bigger. Some are reportedly saying that they bet on the wrong horse or that they need to change course.”
Much of the Wii’s success can be attributed to casual gamers, people who want to play video games occasionally but don’t want to make a large commitment, nor feel they need special skills to play a game. Although the Wii has had success in marketing to casual gamers, many hardcore gamers have felt ignored by game developers marketing so heavily to casual gamers on the Wii. Whether that will all change in 2009 has yet to be determined but hardcore gamers can be hopeful. Last week Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello made a call to investors and said that EA’s goal is to “rival Nintendo on their own platform.” He admitted EA had made a mistake by neglecting the Wii saying, “You live, you learn you adjust and improve.” Riccitiello added, “This year’s title slate is a significant improvement from last year.”
Riccitiello declared that the Wii will receive half of EA’s emphasis this coming year. With EA recently making several large employee cutbacks and announcing game delays, we will have to see if the company will live up to this statement. Either way, Iwata thinks that more high quality games are headed for the Wii. “Overall, we recognise that our relationships with the software manufacturers are shaping up better than before. So, in the mid-term, we believe that more attractive titles will be launched by them for our platforms.”
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