Nintendo Forecasts Miss Estimates as Wii Sales Slow

[famousringo]

kowenicki said:
To be fair in Japan the sales for this year so far compared to last year AND the year before are down a hell of a lot... they are about a 1/3 of both those years.

I dont think that has anything to do with game releases and everything to do with demand.

 

Obviously it does have to do with demand, but software is a huge factor driving demand. And nowhere is that more true than Japan. NA and EU sales have kept up better than Japan for two reasons: The first is that the big system sellers Wii Fit and Mario Kart have kept more momentum in those regions than they have in Japan (nevertheless, these games are still the biggest drivers of what little Japanese sales are left), and the second is that 3rd party Wii releases have been more frequent and compelling in the West than they have been in Japan.

So yes, the problem is demand, and Nintendo obviously needs to prop it up. They're going to do the only thing they've done to prop up Wii demand in the past two years: Release more games and more peripherals. If those fail to generate sufficient demand, then Nintendo is going to have to look at other options for the first time since launch.