Wii outpacing PS2 software sales

Nintendo of America’s COO and president Reggie Fils-Aime has attacked the belief that sales of Wii software are tracking below the industry norm.

Speaking to investors, the colourful exec claimed: Life-to-date software sales for the Wii are dramatically higher than a similar point in time for the PS2. As for where we stand versus the other two home consoles – again this is dramatically higher in life-to-date sales so far.

I would ask what is the right measure in looking at what software sales should be for a platform. If you look at the number of million-unit-sellers, it is quite impressive. If you look at how we’ve had longevity in sales for titles like Wii Fit, Wii Fit Plus, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and Mario Kart Wii, these are titles that launched multiple years ago that continue to sell exceptionally well today.”

Reggie does concede, however, that the vast bulk of Wii’s successes have come from first-party published titles. He acknowledges that more has to be down to help third parties prosper.

I think the bigger challenge is how we enable our third party developers to have similar performance on the platform, have similar long-tail performance, have similar high absolute levels of sales,” he added.

And we’re beginning to see that trend. You look at a title like Just Dance that started – and I think they would even say quite modestly initially, but has now gone on to sell multiple million units across the world. It’s those types of initiatives that will continue to drive overall software sales for the platform.”