Nintendo: "Gamers have been hungry for new and better ways to play"

November 16th, 2012, 00:39 Posted By: wraggster

This holiday season is arguably one of the most important in Nintendo's history. Following an incredibly successful run with the Wii, Nintendo is about to test the console waters again with the Wii U, but as Nintendo readily admits, the Wii U is a much different beast than the Wii and the market itself is vastly different than it was in 2006. Never before has the gaming sphere been more crowded, and with tablets, smartphones, Facebook, competing consoles and other entertainment options taking up people's time and money, the challenge will be great for Nintendo. With profits waning, Nintendo needs Wii U to be a big hit with consumers.
Then there's also the 3DS handheld, let's not forget - Nintendo certainly hasn't. While Sony's PlayStation Vita has struggled, the 3DS has fared well and Nintendo fully believes that there's still a place for dedicated handhelds in the current market. GamesIndustry International recently got on the phone with Nintendo of America's Scott Moffitt, executive vice president of sales and marketing, to talk about how Nintendo aims to capitalize on the holiday shopping season with Wii U and 3DS and whether Wii U will be able to generate the same buzz that the original Wii did.
Q: This is a hugely important holiday for Nintendo. Any time you're launching new hardware is crucial period. When you look at the gaming landscape and the competition, what's the overall Wii U and 3DS strategy? How do you make them “must have” gifts for this holiday?
Scott Moffitt: Obviously, the holidays are a critical time for Nintendo and for all of our products, and we spend a lot of time preparing and planning for this time of year. For us, as we look at the holiday and try to assess what we see - first, on both our handheld and console gaming platforms, we have hardware news. That's exciting whenever you have hardware news to roll out in the marketplace to introduce and launch, it makes your holidays very bright. Certainly with Wii U, it's highly anticipated, the countdown has begun for November 18th, the pre-sells have been incredibly strong and we have a very impressive launch lineup of over 24 games on day one, including games for really gamers of all types starting with one of, if not the biggest gaming franchise of all, Mario, with the new Super Mario Bros U. This will be the first time we've launched with a Mario game on a new platform in a long time, so that game is really getting a great reception so far. And Nintendo Land - new IP - [offers] great games that a lot of young and family gamers can really enjoy.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...r-ways-to-play

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