Iwata Cautious About Early Wii Success

February 2nd, 2007, 19:50 Posted By: wraggster

via gamedaily

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata is obviously quite pleased with the great start that the Wii has had, but he knows that a lot can change in a short time. Nintendo still faces a great challenge ahead, Iwata explained.

According to an interview posted on Japan's Yukan Fuji blog (as translated by IGN), Nintendo president Satoru Iwata hasn't allowed himself to get carried away by the Wii's early success. It's only been a few months and the real battle has only just begun.

The key is to make sure to drive new consumers to the platform by consistently bringing great new content to market (easier said than done, of course). "Any system will sell well following launch," Iwata remarked, "but there will definitely come a time where it will stop selling. Even the DS hit a rough spell after selling 1.5 million units a month after launch. The flame was really lit a year after launch, after Nintendogs and Brain Age became big hits. With the Wii, we have to make good software just as we did with the DS."

And while the Japanese blog suggested that Nintendo might be able to regain the #1 position in the video game industry, Iwata immediately rebuked that notion, not necessarily because of the challenge the company faces against the likes of Sony and Microsoft, but because of the somewhat fickle interests of today's gamers.

"That's not the case," Iwata said rebutting the idea that Nintendo would be #1 from 2007 forward. "So long as we continue the fight against the lack of interest in games from the general consumer, Nintendo will always be the challenger. For example, one challenge is in developing software that keeps people from saying they're no longer interested in swinging the Wiimote."

Nintendo is hoping that it can duplicate the success of the wildly popular DS, which to this day continues to sell out in Japan. In fact, Iwata actually apologized for that once again. "We're making and shipping 700,000 units per month domestically, but even then we're unable to clear up the shortages," he said.

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