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Nintendo WiiHas Nintendo president Satoru Iwata been dosed with truth serum? The head of the Japanese games giant has followed this week’s 3G-enabled Nintendo DS revelations with frank words about the Wii. Find out why he thinks sales have slumped and what Nintendo plans next…

While the Nintendo Wii is still number one among consoles, it’s not exactly been on fire recently. Nintendo’s income is down 59% year-on-year and Wii sales have plummeted 43% even with the launch of the black Wii.

Iwata says the Nintendo Wii has “stalled” and believes the reason is that Nintendo has failed to deliver the “next thing”. If Iwata is speaking publicly about the issue (along with the future of the Nintendo DS XL) can it be long before Nintendo starts work on delivering the Wii’s successor?

Or does Iwata really mean that the major games the firm has been banking on just simply haven’t done the business. Games using the Wii Balance Board like Wii Fit Plus and Wii Sports Resort have been a big priority for the firm but haven’t been hugely successful.

The Xbox 360 and PS3 have both seen sales rises but on the back of significant price drops and, in the case of the PS3, a redesign. The Wii has been phenomenally successful and it’s not unlikely that Nintendo will be able to do it again.

Out now | £180 | Nintendo (via PC World)

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  • Stewart

    “The Wii has been phenomenally successful”. That is total BS. It’s sold 1/3rd of what the PS2 did, and if it’s true that Nintendo has squeezed all they can out the Wii before consumers woke up, then thats pretty abysmal, and a good indicator that you can’t substitute quality for marketing and cheap gimmicks like digital scales and last-gen EyeToy copycat features.

    • http://www.electricpig.co.uk Ben Sillis

      Whether or not you like it – and I share some of your disappointment with it – you can’t deny that it’s grabbed a huge chunk of mind share with the DS and Wii combined. Compare Nintendo today to the Gamecube/GBA era in the early 2000s when it almost seemed irrelevant and you’ll see how much has changed. Ironically, I actually prefer the game catalogue the Cube had to the Wii’s.

  • Bobbymobile

    The problem with the Wii is it does not exploit the online side of it. Just recently they gave their Opera browser away for free. Should have been free from day one. Now they are rewarding existing users for helping other to get online. They need BBC iplayer and other stuff to keep people interested. My PS3 just keeps on getting better with built in iplayer and now movies and stuff. But i am a fan of the big N and can’t wait to see what they will do next

    • http://www.electricpig.co.uk Ben Sillis

      For me, they just need to start appeasing the fan base they’ve had since the 80s or 90s again. I don’t care about graphics, but I know I’ve not played the original Wii Sports since the first week I bought it. I just don’t want gimmicks and ports of Gamecube games, I want the originality Ninty’s always had. So far, I’ve seen that in just a handful of games for the console. You’re right about charging for Opera too.

  • james

    They should of come out with a WII 2 long time time ago. Lacking the hd output, and the power that both the xbox 360 have and ps3 have, will always leave the wii to playing catch up.

    http://bit.ly/3sQLNW

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