Probably the fail of Wii is the most ridiculous fail ever. PS2 wasn't able to sell over 300k for many weeks, over 200k for the most of his life. In his worst period Wii sold 180k, now it's over 300k, and will remain there probably until the end of Holidays. If it's just a matter of sales Wii is not a fail, if there's something else, like lost of customers or profits in decrease then Wii is not a fail, just not the best console ever.

Or is it a strategy to admit defeat, THEN BAM! In ur face Sony

Seriously though they might have something up their sleeves

It's even harder to regain it, though. We'll see what happens this Christmas.

So, if the Wii, with nearly 50% markeshare is considered a "failure", should we then start referring to the 360 as "Laserdisc" and the PS3 as "Betamax"?

Seriously though, they didn't say they failed with the GameCube, but failed with the Wii?

Sure, they screwed up when they started thinking that people wanted Animal Crossing and Wii Music for the 2008 holiday season, and haven't done a good job at keeping quality assurance in many of the shovelware games.

Yet, at the rate of success, past and ongoing, to say they have failed, what then IS success? 75% marketshare?

As for their games pushing the next big thing, last I saw, Sony and MS were scrambling to get motion controls added in. If that's not leading the pack into a whole new direction of gaming, what is?

This industry is turning awfully emo.

Ok, so much stupidity on this thread

They aren't talking about shovelware, or about NSMB not being the next big thing, or about Wii fit plus or Wii sports resort.

What Iwata is saying is that they were not able to find the next big thing, last year they thought that Wii Music would be the next big thing the next big success in their Wii lineup, however, when it failed, they didn't have anything waiting as a backup, and yeah probably some things that would have went further in the direction they hoped Wii Music would have gone were canceled.

This is why they showed off the Wii Vitality sensor, it wasn't supposed to be shown last year at E3 without software, but when Wii music flopped, they panicked and brought out the Vitality sensor before it should have been unveiled, before the software was ready.

This is why the price cut occurred, because they lost so much momentum, if the momentum hadn't been lost, the Wii would still be at $250.

Now the Vitality sensor is being explored as the next big thing, but that's still probably 8-12 months away, Nintendo is aware that they goofed, but not for the reasons people seem to be brining up on this thread.

bardciverse, they mean that they failed to keep the momentum from the previous year and probably will fail to meet their initial projections.

It's not THAT bad.

Wii is a failure, in that Nintendo failed to keep the momentum going like they hoped, that they haven't fully realized the end goals, and that they had to resort to red ocean strategies like a price cut.

I'm kinda with Bard on this one. If Wii is a failure, what does that make PS3 and 360?

Now this is very interesting, my biggest respect to Iwata-san, you have to have balls to come up with such statement. And more so when you are on top of the industry sales wise.

Now I just wish some of the radical Wii fanboys would take a note of what he said and realise that things aren't as pretty as they seem through their pink glasses.

Iwata is not saying the Wii is a failure, they just failed to keep their momentum and he's stating its their own fault, unlike other people that like to pretend they're selling exceptionally well despite not meeting goals, or like some others that like to blame the consumer and not themselves.   They're taking responsibility for the loss of momentum and discussing they're planning on getting it back despite it being hard to do.