The Nintendo Wii Has Recovered from Slowdown

Before the Christmas shopping season was in full swing, Nintendo did an uncharacteristic thing. The Japanese company sent out some of its high profile leaders to tell the public that the Nintendo Wii could actually be in a bit of trouble.

Its performance in Japan has been described as “less than healthy” and the home gaming console received a 50 dollar price cut to make it more competitive. But now confidence appears to have returned to the company, which is dominating the current gaming console business.

Satoru Iwata, who is the president of Nintendo, has talked to Reuters and told them that “I think it's now safe to say the Wii has recovered from slowdown. But I'm not sure if it's prudent to use words like revival and recovery lightly before making absolutely certain we can maintain this momentum. So, I steer clear of such words today.”

The company is saying that the tandem of New Super Mario Bros. and Nintendo Wii performed very well in December. There have been more than 3 million units of the console itself sold, which is way better than the 2.15 million in the same period of 2008, while the game managed to reach the 4 million milestone. Reggie Fils-Aime, the president of Nintendo of America, predicted that, overall, the new Mario experience would sell better than Modern Warfare 2.

Nintendo must also be pretty pleased with how the DS line up is faring. The handheld is outselling the PlayStation Portable, its rival from Sony, and it seems to be breaking normal sales patterns for its category, with Iwata saying that, normally, “game gear sales peak in the third year and take a downturn thereafter,” while the numbers for the DS show a continuous increase. We will have a complete look at the sales charts for December in the United States in about one week, when the NPD Group releases them.