Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has addressed the issue of slow Wii U sales by reminding everyone that the original Game Boy didn’t become a hit until Pokemon hit the scene.
As part of an analyst Q&A session, Iwata addressed the matter of Nintendo’s poor financials.
He compared the slow uptake of Wii U consoles to the launch of Game Boy, another format that saw a gradual increase in sales before erupting as the Pokemon phenomenon took hold.
“The fate of a video game system is often influenced greatly by the introduction of a single title,” Iwata said. “As many of you probably remember, before the release of the Pokémon game, Game Boy had been showing slow growth, and many people wondered whether it was the end of Game Boy.
“But the Pokémon game singlehandedly changed the landscape of the system, which then started to show the strongest sales in the lifecycle of the system.”
Further on, Iwata stressed that Nintendo isn’t trying to surpass the original Wii’s massive sales with Wii U, stating, “As I explained back in January, it is true that we cannot draw up a good business plan for Wii U by assuming that Wii U will sell more than Wii did. Therefore, we will need to think very carefully about the balance of revenue and expenses and try to operate by controlling overall costs.
“On the other hand, we do not believe that this year’s estimate of 3.60 million units of Wii U hardware will be the peak of its lifecycle, and we would like to work hard to make sure that we give sufficient momentum to the system so that we can expect good results in and after the next fiscal year, too.
“However, as for this fiscal year, as I explained before, the figures you see have been determined by rather conservative estimates.”
