Nintendo Looks Outside the Box - WSJ, May 28 2009
Nintendo Co., in a bid to keep up momentum for its Wii console, is pushing to increase the number of Wii videogames made by outside publishers, including combat and sports titles that target serious players.
Reggie Fils-Aime, the company's U.S. president, said in an interview Tuesday he hoped to increase the percentage of games made by outside publishers to about 70% of the Wii's library of games, up from about 55% now. That would be about the same ratio as the split for its portable Nintendo DS device.
He also said Nintendo doesn't plan to cut the price of the Wii, whose $250 price hasn't changed since its debut. "Price cuts are a short-term incentive," he said. "In the long run, you need software to excite people."
Since the company launched the Wii in November 2006, it has sold more than 50 million units world-wide, with much of its popularity driven by casual games that Nintendo created itself.
For example, the Nintendo-developed Wii Play has been the top selling game. It has sold 10.7 million copies in the U.S., more than three times as many units as the top game by an outside publisher, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock by Activision Blizzard Inc., which has sold 2.9 million copies, according to market research firm NPD Group.
But now Nintendo is putting more effort than ever in encouraging publishers to make games for the Wii to ensure a steady flow of diverse games. "In order to achieve high levels of sales of hardware, we need all genres in the market," said Mr. Fils-Aime.
As part of that effort, Nintendo is taking an unusual step in allowing videogame publisher Electronic Arts Inc. to release two sports games that take advantage of a brand new hardware accessory more than a month before Nintendo's own marquee game is released.
EA plans to sell Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 in North America and Europe, packaged with the Wii MotionPlus, an attachment for the Wii's wireless controller that makes it more sensitive to movement. In Europe, EA also plans to sell a second game, Grand Slam Tennis.
Both EA games will launch in early June, ahead of Nintendo's own game for the attachment, Wii Sports Resort, which will debut in late July. "We really liked what we could get from the MotionPlus," said EA's chief executive John Riccitiello.
Such moves are particularly important for Nintendo, which has had a relatively limited library of games by outside developers until recently. That's partly because most game developers didn't expect the Wii to become the industry's dominant game machine and were devoting resources to creating titles for Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360.
Nintendo has also been hurt by the perception that the Wii's success benefits Nintendo's own games, and not other software publishers. Some game publishers privately gripe that Nintendo has an unfair advantage in part because it knows first what Wii hardware accessories are coming and can target games to best capitalize on the new equipment.
Nintendo President Satoru Iwata disputed that perception in March, citing data by NPD that the best-selling platform for third-party games has been the Wii.
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