Iwata Discusses Sales, Next Year for Wii

Despite recent figures showing a decline in sales, president and CEO Satoru Iwata has been very vocal about the situation and Nintendo’s projections. While speaking at a press conference in Osaka, Japan, Iwata is quoted as saying “Wii has stalled. We were unable to continually release strong software, and let the nice mood cool. We were unable to show a new game to become ‘the next thing.'”

Even though sales have dropped, Iwata still seems confident that the recent price drop will keep Nintendo on track to reach 20 million in unit sales, down from the original 26 million target. “With the price drop, sales returned to a certain level, but they just did not reach the level of last year around this time…In order to reach it (20 million target), we’ll have to move quite a large quantity, but it’s a figure we released after having felt the momentum returning…”

It appears that Nintendo has resolved itself to lower than expected sales this year and has moved on to planning new things for 2010. “Now, we are preparing for next year and thinking about what to do the year after next,” Iwata said. “We’re thinking about our best chances for success.” Next year will see the release of the Vitality Sensor, a heart rate monitor revealed at this year’s E3 presentation. There has also been speculation about new hardware on the horizon.

While defending Nintendo’s marketing strategies is all well and good, it would be nice to see the development of some new titles for the Wii. The price drop was a good way to boost sales for the time being, but without some software support, it’s unlikely the trend will continue.

For the really adventurous, or just those with a lot of time on their hands, you can look at a 48 minute slideshow of Iwata discussing Nintendo sales, complete with pie charts.