Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime talks about launching the Wii U ahead of Sony and Microsoft’s new consoles and the potential to still outsell them.
Fils-Aime had a lengthy interview with the Seattle Times on all things Nintendo. Their E3 presentation received generally favorable reviews across the board, and now he’s ready to take that momentum to the next level.
Here are some of the highlights from the interview.
On releasing the Wii U too early:
The interesting point there is that when we announced the Wii U and when we announced all of the launch details, we fully expected games like “Wii Fit U,” “Pikmin,” the “The Wonderful 101” to be in the launch window. The Nintendo quality bar is really what kept us from launching those games potentially in February or March and so that’s what created the lack of software during that initial launch phase.
I find this quote to essentially mean, yes, it did come out too early. Nintendo wanted to release the console ahead of the curve to get a jump start on both Sony and Microsoft, but played their hand a little too early when realizing that many games wouldn’t be ready. This led to general disinterest in their system and more people just holding on to see what the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 had to offer
On the Wii U outselling the competition:
The dirty little secret is if you look at life-to-date numbers, between Sony and Nintendo they’d be pretty close in terms of PS4 vs. Wii U, with Xbox coming in third place. I think it’s going to be a three-horse race for the balance of this cycle.
That’s a solid sell by Reggie. However, that’s trying to cover up the news that Sony outsold Nintendo by over 2 million units in the last fiscal year.
On how much the Amiibo figurines will cost:
You can expect them to be comparable to the Disney and Skylander products that are on the market. [They cost $10 to $15.]
Sounds about right, even though I wouldn’t be surprised if the big mascots like Mario, Link, Donkey Kong, etc., could carry a $20 price tag or more.
On not getting the big third-party software that Sony and Microsoft has again this generation:
We’ll see. We think that we’ve got a plethora of great content; we think we’ve got differentiated content. In the end we’ve got competitors trying to one-up each other with who’s going to get downloadable content and how much you’re going to pay the publisher to get access to that content.
For us, we’re launching fantastic IP, great games; our belief is that’s going to drive the business forward.
It’s more of the same for Nintendo. For the foreseeable future, they’re going to rely on their IPs to sell their console. They’ve got plenty of big hits coming in the rest of this year and next year, but can the Wii U play catch up with the other consoles when the Wii had a severe fall-off in support after third-party companies abandoned it or released nothing but mini-games?
On if Nintendo is going to release their next-generation console in the near future:
We don’t think so. We think that the Wii U has a long and vibrant life in front of it. What it needs are games like “Mario Kart 8” and “Super Smash Bros for Wii U” and “Splatoon” — those types of games that can really drive the installed base. We believe if we can do that effectively the Wii U has a long and robust life.
I really wonder if these games are going to be system sellers. Yes, Mario Kart 8 will certainly move some consoles, but there’s a reason why Mario Kart on the Wii had a huge amount of sales — everybody had the console. Can another version of Mario Kart and Smash Bros. actually sell this console?
There’s also two things to worry about in the new installment of Smash Bros. Yes, the Wii edition outsold the Melee version by over 5 million copies, but there were plenty of die-hard fans that still preferred the GameCube edition. And will releasing a version of Smash Bros. on the 3DS be enough for players to avoid purchasing an additional copy on the Wii U?
Plus, I have my doubts on Splatoon– not as a game, but if it can actually be a popular new IP.
In conclusion, Fils-Aime says everything in this article that he’s supposed to. But this is going to be a big year and half for Nintendo. We will find out if their IPs will actually move consoles or if it was just the benefactor of having so many Wii’s out in the wild last generation.
What do you think about Reggie’s comments and the future of Nintendo?
