14 DAY TRIAL // Nintendo is a hugely successful company, thanks to its very popular consoles and to the fact that it has a lot of franchises that sell like proverbial hot cakes when they arrive on devices made by the Japanese company, whether they are the Wii or the DS handheld.
However, even thought the company is quite successful on its consoles, third-party developers have trouble finding some good sales on either of the platforms, especially when they launch M-rated games that target the niche hardcore Wii players, who are vastly inferior in number as opposed to the casual users.
But that isn't so, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime, who has talked with Kotaku about the problems of third-party developers, says. He has gone on to say that he expects hardcore titles like Sega's The Conduit or EA's Dead Space Extraction to sell a lot, but not in the first month, as a lot of people expect, but in multiple months across the year.
“There is no magic number that says x = profitability,” Fils-Aime shares. “I am really optimistic about The Conduit. I think it looks great, plays great. I think Dead Space Extraction is going to be fabulous given the early builds that I've seen. So, I do think that we will continue to see not only great titles, but great sales, on higher-rated M and T type of titles on our platforms.”
He has then addressed the fact that sales in the first month of hardcore games aren't as big as casual ones. “In the handheld space, with Nintendo platforms specifically — whether it's Game Boy Advance or Nintendo DS — the fact is that first month sales really don't matter. You have a title like Mario Kart, in its first month, a holiday month that did just over 200,000 copies. New Super Mario Brothers, which launched in the summer, did over 150,000 in its first month. Those are not huge numbers, yet both of those have gone on to sell more than four million units apiece and to be in the top 10 total industry titles for the last two years running.”
He has then referred to Rockstar's GTA: Chinatown Wars, one of the most praised DS titles that managed to move only 66,000 copies in its first month. “So, first month doesn't matter in the handheld space as long as it's a high-quality game, which Chinatown Wars is, has some continuous level of marketing support — whether its retail marketing, consumer marketing, online — as long as you keep the buzz going it will continue to sell millions and millions. And that's my expectation for Chinatown Wars. As long as the team at Take Two and Rockstar give it a long life, it will do very well.”
So, at least according to Reggie Fils-Aime, third-party developers need to stay focused, as they will have success if they persevere.