As we all know, Wii has been on a sales slide in Japan. However the picture is bigger than that.
The entire industry has been on a sales slide in Japan for years now, especially home consoles. Plus Japan has an aging population. Which is why Nintendo decided they needed to make a system (DS) that would appeal to more than just the young gaming 'core' and why we have Nintendogs and Brain Age for it. It was a huge success and continues to dominate sales in the land of the rising sun even now, years later, even after saturating the marketing (more than 1 in 5 Japanese owns a DS, effectively one in every house in the country and it's still selling).
Being last in the last generation with the Gamecube, seeing the Japanese home gaming scene slowing fading away and knowing competing with Sony & MS in high-end loss leading systems would kill them, Nintendo decided to do for home consoles what DS did for portables. Along came the Wii.
And it was a success. A huge success. And people called it a fad. And too an extent, they were right. Even Iwata acknowledged that the mass market is easily bored and you must keep surprising them with new experiences or they'll lose interest. Nintendo knew what they were getting into - sorta.
But everything worked great. Wii Sports sold well (Japan), Wii Play sold well, Wii Fit was huge, Mario Kart was a perfect bridge title, Brawl still had massive core appeal and some casual. But then came the double whammy misfire of Wii Music and Animal Crossing. Yes, both made money and are in and of themselves successful, but both failed to do what Nintendo intented them to do - surprise and engage the mass market. As Iwata predicted, they have played Brawl, Kart, Sports to death, see nothing new to surprise and entice them are quickly losing interest.
Now Japan is the worst market for this for a number of reasons, 1) More fickle and prone to obsess over a few select things (MH, FF, DQ) while most others get poor reception. 2) In Japan, like no where else, 3rd party software has really struggled on Wii, leaving Nintendo alone to carry the system 3) Recession is worst in Japan.
Now Nintendo knew they'd need another 'surprise' after Wii Music, Animal Crossing started to fade, and that's Wii Motion Plus/Wii Sports Resort. So will it revive Wii sales?
Temporarily, but not by what we'd hope for or for too long.
Why?
The Wii Music/AC failed to sell like other key titles creating a prolonged vacuum, creating a lost on interest in Wii in general. Once the shine has gone it's much harder to gain it back.
Unlike in the West where Virtua Tennis, Grand Slam Tennis, Tiger Woods, Red Steel 2 and other titles will help promote and evangilize the wonderfulness of Wii Motion Plus (especially EA who stands to gain a lot from it), those titles will have little appeal in Japan and there are no (announced) Japan centric titles using Wii Motion Plus. So if you live in Japan WM+ is good for Wii Sports Resort... and that's it. Effectively making it a one trick pony. A gimmick. And not all that interesting or different to the mass market than what they thought Wii Sports was in the first place.
In the West the Wii is still popular and with massive 3rd party support Wii Motion Plus will successfully reinvigorate interest in Wii for the casual market and possibly the core (depends, we'll need more than RS2).
But in Japan it's likely too be simply too little, too late.
However, all is not lost in Japan. Monster Hunter 3 tri, Tales of Graces, Dragon Quest X and likely other unannounced titles are coming and should give Wii a much needed boost. But without WM+ adoptation in any of these or other titles, that leaves Wii fighting PS3 and 360 for the core gamers and not the casual market and that's exactly where Nintendo didn't want to end up in the first place because it's still a dying market that's ultimately not worth winning.
The other factor is whatever Nintendo still has up it's sleeve. A Wii Fit Plus and a casualized Zelda Wii using WM+ for the fall season would be a huge boon.
