Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros WILL save Wii U, Iwata insists

This year’s release of Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros will sell Wii U hardware and help the machine hit its 3.6m unit sales target.

That’s according to Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, who has told investors that the two titles are the pillars of our entire marketing strategy for this year” and that they will encourage those who do not own Wii U hardware to purchase it”.

That’s despite the fact that the critically applauded Super Mario 3D World was unable to create any significant sales uplift for the console.

Added Iwata: As to whether our philosophy has changed or not, the basic idea that consumers reluctantly purchase hardware only because they want to play with appealing software remains unchanged.”

Iwata also confirmed that there aren’t currently enough Wii U units in the channel to meet its sales goals, but the ongoing losses the company incurs during manufacturing have already been factored in to the company’s partners.

In order to sell 3.6m units, we have to produce some more hardware units on top of our current hardware inventory,” he added.

However, since the loss arising due to the hardware production costs being higher than our trade price was taken into account in the previous fiscal year, you could assume that there will be almost no loss this fiscal year for the sales of the 3.6m hardware units.”

There will also be some more games announced for the console at E3.

We are going to talk about other Wii U titles at E3 in Los Angeles in June,” he added. Also, our internal software development teams directed by Shigeru Miyamoto are committed to developing several titles that focus on offering unique experiences only made possible with the Wii U GamePad in order for a large number of people to understand the Wii U GamePad’s significance.

The titles we are preparing to show you at E3 vary from being nearly complete to still in the early phases of development but with the core of its appeal noticeable. Therefore, our strategy of focusing on software has not changed.”