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Nintendo - Wii will not be forgotten after Wii U launch, great Wii U software at launch

by rawmeatcowboy
11 January 2012
GN Version 4.0
A portion of an IG interview with Nintendo of America's Vice President of Sales & Marketing Scott Moffitt...

IG: Has thought been given to keeping the Wii around after the Wii U comes it? It continues to sell and have an audience, and I imagine there will be a significant price difference between the Wii and the Wii U. You've kept the DS line going since the 3DS came out, and they continue to sell. Will you keep the Wii after the Wii U comes out?

SM: Yes. Most definitely. We sold 4 million new Wiis last year, and we think Wii still has a lot of life left in it. There's a lot of parts of the expanded audience that still haven't purchased one, and with the price becoming more and more accessible we think there's a lot of runway ahead for the Wii. You made the point yourself, at least in the Western markets, when a new piece of hardware becomes available the consumers don't all switch on day one to the new hardware. We're still selling DSIs and DSI XLs and 3DS has been out since March. Yes, absolutely the Wii and the Wii U will both be on the market for a period of time.

The important point is there's two different audiences. There's going to be an early adopter audience, there's going to be a lot of people that really want to get a Wii U when it comes out, but there are a lot of people who are late adopters that are still discovering the magic of the Wii. There's a reason for being for both.

IG: One thing that was clear with the 3DS was that the launch titles didn't have the impact of Super Mario 3D Land or Mario Kart 7, and that software was the biggest reason the 3DS did well over the holidays. It seems to me the Wii U really needs key pieces of software like that for a successful launch. Is that what you're planning for the Wii U?

SM: I think you're making the point better than I could make it. Software drives hardware; we found that out with 3DS. There was great anticipation of course for Zelda: Ocarina of Time, but a lot of consumers were waiting for two or three other Mario titles so that when they bought the hardware they had great high-quality games that they were dying to play right out of the gate. So for those consumers that really came to the 3DS family over the holidays, they were really waiting for some of those titles. Mario Kart 7 and Super Mario 3D Land both sold over a million copies in the holiday time frame. We picked up great momentum on 3DS; it was its first holiday and we were all hopeful but we wanted to see the actual results come in, and they've come in to our satisfaction.

We expect to have great first party titles but also great software support in general for Wii U when it comes out later this year. We appreciate the point you're making, that software drives hardware, and without great software there's not a great reason to buy immediately. ...I think with Wii U we want to make sure we have great software right at launch.

Full interview here