Iwata: Three Nintendo titles released this year expected to top sales of 10 million
Latter half of year will see strong enough sales to reverse Nintendo's poor start
Nintendo recognises it hasn't had the strongest start to the financial year, with profits in its first quarter down 60.6 per cent on last year. But it still expects to deliver on original forecasts for the fiscal year with the releases of Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit Plus and New Super Mario Bros Wii.
Speaking during a result briefing, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata acknowledged that two of its key titles released at the end of 2008 - Wii Music and Animal Crossing: City Folk - did not fulfil sales expectation, with 2.65 and 3.38 million copies sold respectively.
In contrast, Mario Kart Wii and Wii Fit, released in the April-June period of the FY 2009 have sold 15.4 and 16.37 million units respectively.
The main reasons for the downturn in Wii sales during this first quarter (down from 5.17 million in 2008 to 2.23 million), said Iwata, are that the company couldn't launch Wii Sports Resort earlier, due to limited supplies of Wii MotionPlus, and the software launched over Christmas 2008 not having longer tails.
However, the president isn't worried Nintendo will fail to meet its overall FY 2010 forecasts, as he predicts Wii Sports Resort and Wi Fit Plus in Q2, and New Super Mario Bros Wii in Q3 each has the potential to sell 10 million copies plus.
"I believe each of these three software titles have the potential to surpass 10 million copies worldwide in the whole fiscal year," said Iwata.
"We recognise this Q1 result is not the strongest and closer to the lower parameters of our expectations, but we expect we can reverse the situation through the full-fiscal year and therefore did not revise out forecast."