Hard to compete with the SSBB, MKW and Wii Fit combo from this time last year.
Nintendo is obviously relying on WSR and other WM+ games to drive more interest over the summer, after the failure of Wii Music and Animal Crossing Wii.
The main thing that should worry people is that Nintendo would lead a holiday with two games without any content. Wii Music relies on user-generated content, and AC Wii is old content with new features. Hopefully Nintendo have learned their lesson.
A release schedule full of lesser hits with a back catalog of mega-hits can still drive record sales, though, as we have seen with DS. Problem being that a home console demands twice as many lesser hits, and third parties have stepped up half as much as they have on DS.
But overall, sales on the year are fine. This year, Wii sold 4.97M from the week ending Jan 9 to the week ending April 10. Last year, it sold 4.15M from the week ending Jan 11 to the week ending April 11. The difference is that last year, the Wii had a bigger sell-out in holiday 07, had next to nothing on the shelves early in Jan, then got new stock in place for huge software launches in March, April and May. This year, they followed a more traditional Dec-May decline without any big software until summer.
"[Our former customers] are unable to find software which they WANT to play."
"The way to solve this problem lies in how to communicate what kind of games [they CAN play]."
Satoru Iwata, Nintendo President. Only slightly paraphrased.
