Last year I noticed something big. Nintendo usually reveals about 10-12 new games at E3 each year for their home consoles. However at E3 2007 Nintendo only unvieled two new titles and announced many other titles were being delayed till 2009. I was alittle curious and thought to myself that Nintendo has to be holding back.

 Well Reggie himself said "We at Nintendo America are focused on getting to the point when any consumer can walk into any of our retailers and find a Wii. Then we can plan, on an ongoing basis, the rest of the business," and Gamesindustry.biz said in the same article "The company said it is finding it difficult to plan for upcoming games without being able to accurately forecast the number of Wiis that will be sold in the coming months."

It sure sounds like Nintendo is putting its software catalogues on hold to wait untill they meet the hardware demands or hardware sales begin to dip. So with the 10 or so un-revealed games Nintendo didn't unviel at E3 2007 what can we expect for E3 2008?

Will Nintendo be ready to reveal the titles they have been holding back and release the games they have been holding onto. Or will Nintendo continue to build up the amount of titles it is reserving for when they meet hardware demands?

Also I'm a little disapointed because Nintendo has always put software first and hardware second. But now Nintendo is putting the rest of its buisness sort of on hold untill it can bring up the hardware numbers. A little disapointing though it is the smart thing to do. Whats your take on Nintendo concentrating on hardware for the time being? 

thats sucks but I think you are right... Why bring out all of your big games when you don't need them to sell systems yet.

Pikmin3, Donkey Kong, Wii Wars, a New Zelda built from the ground up for the Wii, a new Wii series title, something out of left field that will become the next craze, and SSB DS.

I've long had the feeling that the rather significant delays of most of the big Nintendo games have been less about finishing the games and more about Nintendo realizing that it's an utter waste of a huge IP to release Brawl for Christmas.

On the one hand, it's a bit annoying, but, on the other, one would hope that their devs aren't just sitting on their hands while they wait for the Wii to stop selling out. A lot of the Brawl updates, for example, strike me as the sorts of things that weren't originally going to be in the game, but which they found the time to implement due to the almost year-long delay (from summer '07, if I recall) Nintendo has traditionally been fairly good about getting strong first party games out quickly, but they've had trouble keeping that support strong throughout a console's lifetime. This may eventually lead to more and better games from late '08 onwards.

In short, I think the Wii's success means we get games later, but that they're better when we get them. Not necessarily a bad thing, though I can see how some people would see it as such.

I think the OP's interpretation of that statement is mistaken.

I think it's good. Gives Nintendo time to refine these games, and to also get a properly accurate launch day sales. Just look at how Mario Galaxy did. I'm sure there are a lot of people who were holding back on getting a Wii system until a game like that came out, but the console was in such limited availability they weren't able to get either.
Personally, I don't believe a game can be judged by it's first week sales, but by how it's sales are about 6 weeks later. Still, I know people do judge games success on how well the first week goes. In many ways, this is important to the game manufacturer as well, due to the more immediate return on the investment they made. It's better to have that debt paid off in the first week and everything else be gravy than to have hope that it eventually will break even over the course of a few months.

So, they stockpile software to increase demand. XD
Nintendo definately have a history of making the games for release date instead of finishing them.

The reason why Nintendo didn't announce titles was because they don't need to. They can build up hype, if needed, by announcing new game(s) and a date. With N64 and GC, they needed to announce new titles as soon as possible for at least some hype, so that people would have "upcoming" games list, which would boost hardware. So, no need to announce delays or cancellations either.

Hmm, I do hope they come up with something better than this year's E3. Or e3. Which was a bit of a letdown, in my opinion. Especially after the tremendous succes that was E3 2006.
I got my fingers crossed for a new Wii Zelda. Preferably toonshaded, I adored Wind Waker! :)

Wasn't the big stink coming out of E3 over the fact that Nintendo completely glossed over whether or not Brawl would be a WiFi title?

I'd venture a guess that some delays have been due to ironing out the online roadmap for Wii, as it seems Nintendo did miss the boat entirely here up through 2005. Which is to say, they didn't think online would be a big deal, until it suddenly blew up on them with the Nitro/DS, leaving them scrambling to fix all the holes they didn't think they'd have with Revolution/Wii.

I mean, come on ... it's December 2007 and Reggie is answering conference calls about headsets and voice chat for the Wii? They haven't figured this out yet?!

I do think you're right, though. There is no reason to drop all the software up front when many potential buyers can't even get the hardware. It's better to stagger the releases with one big bomb every three or four months, and stretch out the software to maximize sales and keep buyers coming back to the Nintendo cases at the stores.

o nintendo nintendo, pretty smart huh, but we want games you know ;)