Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata has recently admitted that his company is bit a worried about the lack of third-party video game sales for Nintendo platforms, with the Wii being addressed specifically.
While the Wii and the DS have become sales phenomenons, managing to ship millions upon millions of units around the world, the only company that is really succeeding in selling video games for them is Nintendo itself, largely thanks to its popular franchises like Mario or The Legend of Zelda.
Meanwhile, traditional third-party game companies like EA, Activision-Blizzard or Ubisoft are really struggling to make successful games for the Nintendo platforms.
Iwata admits that the ratio of third-party sales as opposed to first-party ones on the Wii is "especially low."
"It is true that the third party software sales ratio on Nintendo platforms are comparatively smaller in Japan," Iwata admitted. "Wii's third party software ratio is especially low."
"We need to decrease the concern that only Nintendo software can sell well on Nintendo platforms and third party software cannot sell in the same volume," he continued.
This will be fixed when the
Nintendo 3DS handheld will be launched next year, as the company is seeking out closer contacts with third-party publishers in order to ensure quality titles make it to the 3DS.
"We will not make a trend similar to the one found for Wii in Japan now. We feel a need to have closer ties with our third party developers from the beginning. Together with the third party software people, we aim to expand the sales of Nintendo 3DS, and we will never stop our efforts to expand the gaming population."
It seems that Nintendo really wants to strike it big with the 3DS, ensuring not only a solid first-party support, with
ports and remakes of classic games from its catalog, but also a hefty third-party lineup, with the likes of Capcom's
Resident Evil or Street Fighter franchises.
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