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Iwata: 'We're Not Thinking of Doing Anything With the Wii's Price'

Posted August 4, 2009 by David Radd

Following Nintendo's recent fiscal report, the company's CEO and President Satoru Iwata conducted a Q&A session with investors. In a translation provided by Andriasang, Iwata noted that Wii Sports Resort was delayed in order to make sure that enough Wii MotionPlus units were available, though there are apparently no such concerns about Wii Fit Plus and New Super Mario Bros. "We have absolutely no worry that they will not be released as scheduled," said Iwata.

Iwata noted that the lack of Wii console sales in the first quarter of the fiscal year was due to a weaker software lineup, and he noted that a couple of two million-plus sellers didn't quite do well enough. "Last year, Wii Music and Animal Crossing City Folk did not reach our expectations," said Iwata. "If we had made them into long sellers, the effects of the lack of software in the first half of the year would have been lowered. However, their sales slowed in a relatively short term."

Wii Fit Plus, New Super Mario Bros. and Wii Sports Resort can help push the Wii to sell over 10 million units during the fiscal year, according to Iwata. Despite decreased demand during the first fiscal quarter of 2009, Iwata doesn't think that the Wii is any sort of fad wearing out its welcome and dismissed any price cut talk. "At present, we're not thinking of doing anything with the price," said Iwata.

It doesn't surprise us too much that Nintendo isn't looking to cut the price right now- demand will probably increase as the holidays draw near, and the Wii is still the best selling home console on the market. Of course, this doesn't mean that Nintendo won't decide to cut the price later in order to meet their guidance for the fiscal year.

David Radd has worked as a gaming journalist since 2004 at sites such as GamerFeed, Gigex and GameDaily Biz.