Nintendo's Q1 Media Summit yesterday was all about the games, specifically those coming out for the Wii and DS during the first part of 2010. The event held particular import for the hardcore gaming set, with the publisher attaching release dates to the heavily anticipated Super Mario Galaxy 2 (May 23) and Metroid: Other M (June 27), as well as Capcom's Monster Hunter Tri (April 20).
Dunaway believes Monster Hunter Tri has potential.
Following Nintendo's opening remarks, GameSpot sat down with Nintendo of America executive vice president of sales and marketing Cammie Dunaway to discuss the core-gaming aspect of the publisher's release game plan. And according to Dunaway, Capcom's Monster Hunter Tri is a game that will "show that action-oriented games can do well on the Wii platform."
Dunaway didn't seem to be particularly concerned about a recent study that found that there has been a 12 percent decline in developers making games for the Wii. Notably, the phenomenon isn't limited to small productions houses, with Ubisoft deemphasizing its heretofore strong Wii and DS support in favor of refocusing resources on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
"There continue to be a number of great games coming out from third parties for the Wii," she said. "In fact, between now and July, there are going to be 50 Wii games launched from third parties; there are going to be 40 games launched for DS…I think that when third parties bring together the right combination of innovative experiences and they continue to put the right level of marketing support behind them, then they can have great success."
"I think they're always juggling resources and juggling their choices, but when you look at the huge installed base of the Wii, which is now over 27 million in the US, 67 million worldwide, and the installed base on DS which is 39 million here in the US and 125 million worldwide, you just can't ignore those installed bases," she continued. "And I think that smart developers and smart publishers will continue to put a focus on developing for our platforms."
With both the Wii and DS seeing year-over-year sales declines during the first nine months of the publisher's current fiscal year, Dunaway also addressed ongoing speculation of a hardware update for its top-selling console. According to Dunaway, gamers shouldn't hold their breath for an announcement of the Wii's successor.
"I don't think it'll be anytime soon," she said. "Because even though our installed base is, at this point, 5 million households larger than the PS2 installed base was at the same point in its life cycle, it still has a lot of room to grow. If you think PS2, there's been about 50 million sold, Wii close to 28 million sold, so that says to me that there's still a big audience out there that we can access with Wii."
