Third party Wii U support has allowed Nintendo to delay first-party titles

NewsPublish Date 30/10/2012 - 10:30am GMT

Will ensure the console doesn't suffer a post-launch software drought.

Strong support from third-party publishers for the Wii U launch means Nintendo has been able to hold off from releasing all its titles close to the console's launch, president and CEO Saturu Iwata has told investors.

"If you look at how pre-orders are doing at the moment, it is not an exaggeration to say that Wii U is sure to sell well in this holiday season, as many of you are probably thinking," explained Iwata. "But we realise the biggest challenge is to make sure that Wii U sells well even in the next year after the holiday season, and we are working on that too.

"Nintendo tends to release too many titles at the launch of a hardware system and as a result suffers a drop in new games for quite some time after launch, and for the Wii U launch, we are being very careful not to let it happen.

"Fortunately, third-party publishers overseas are launching many titles for us this time, and we were able to push back the release of some of the titles that we had originally intended to release as launch titles until next year."

Iwata believes that new software post launch, together with strong word of mouth, will help ensure Wii U momentum continues past January 2013.

Wii U launches in the UK on November 30.

VideoGamer.com Analysis

This surely explains Pikmin's absence from the launch, which is now set to arrive in Q1 2013. Tecmo Koei's Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge – distributed in Europe by Nintendo – will release on January 11.

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User Comments

MJTH @ Woffls

I'm not sure if some of EA's games would of really helped the launch line up anyway, considering what EA has just released on the other platforms in Q4 (i.e "Medal of honour: war fighter" and "007 legend").

The mass effect collection has just been announced for other platforms kind of making Mass effect 3 on Wii U somewhat redundant. Leaving the only games that could of helped the Wii U launch being a decent port of FIFA 13 or NFS Most wanted coming out this year and they couldn't even get those 2 right.

I just hope they release some of their 2013 games on Wii U. They don't really need add gimmicks, just parity and the ability to play the game on the gamepad by itself when not on the TV would be nice.

Posted 11:12 on 30 October 2012

Woffls

Kinda surprised they're doing this after how shafted they got by 3rd parties on the 3DS launch. If Ubisoft weren't around, I think this would be a different story. Thanks for nothing, EA.

Posted 10:55 on 30 October 2012

MJTH

Speaking from the experience of the first 6 months of the 3DS, with an incredible games drought, I'm kind of glad they're holding off releasing titles, and not releasing everything at launch. At least in this case we know stuff will be coming in the near future.

Posted 10:36 on 30 October 2012