Reggie on Wii U software struggles, developer relations, no Wii/DS support, fan campaigns having no impact
A portion of a Siliconera interview with Reggie Fils-Aime...
S: We just recently passed the one year anniversary of the Wii U. Is there anything you would have liked to do differently, if you could go back and re-do it?
RFA: You know, what drives a system are those key must-have games. When we launched the Wii U, we were pointing to Pikmin, we were pointing to Wii Fit U, and we were pointing to Zelda and Mario—so all of these great games that are coming out now? We wanted them to come out by the end of March last year. That’s been the biggest challenge we’ve had. We knew we had a great line-up. We wanted it to launch much earlier to drive the system. So, what does that mean going forward?
That means that we have to make sure that the pipeline for new games has that steady pace. We’ve had it arguably since July, in terms of that regular pace of games—and guess what? The Wii U has responded, and we just have to make sure that that pace is consistent. We’ve got Wii Fit U in January, and Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze in February. [Mario] Kart is still Spring 2014—no solid release date, it’s still just Spring. All we’ve said for Smash Bros. is 2014.
S: Now that Mr. Iwata is the CEO of Nintendo of America, are you going to see a greater emphasis on regional games developed here in the Americas?
RFA: The fact of the matter is, we have two internal studios that are based in the U.S.: we’ve got Retro, and we’ve got NST. In addition, there are a number of key relationships we have with companies based here in the Americas. The team that did Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon, for example, is up in Vancouver. We’re looking to build more and more relationships with great developers here—developers who can take some of our best franchises and help create fantastic content.
S: How long does Nintendo intend on releasing games for the Wii?
RFA: Well, in terms of Nintendo-published titles, we’re not publishing any more Wii games—neither are we publishing any more DS games. Third parties are publishing for them – but we’re focused on driving the install base of the Wii U. From a licensing perspective, it’s tough to ignore a 100 million unit install base on Wii, and a 150 million unit install base on the DS, but from a Nintendo first-party perspective? We have to focus on driving the install base of the new platforms, because if we don’t do it, no one else will.
S: Going off of that, how much do what fans want or say influence your decisions? [Operation Moonfall and Operation Rainfall are cited as examples here.]
RFA: I have to tell you—it doesn’t affect what we do. We certainly look at it, and we’re certainly aware of it, but it doesn’t necessarily affect what we do. I’ll give you an example. I mentioned earlier that our head of product development had a bet on X versus Y—we also had a bet around localizing Xenoblade.
I wanted to bring Xenoblade here. The deal was, how much of a localization effort is it? How many units are we going to sell, are we going to make money? We were literally having this debate while Operation Rainfall was happening, and we were aware that there was interest for the game, but we had to make sure that it was a strong financial proposition.
I’m paid to make sure that we’re driving the business forward—so we’re aware of what’s happening, but in the end we’ve got to do what’s best for the company. The thing we know [about petitions] is that 100,000 signatures doesn’t mean 100,000 sales.
S: We just recently passed the one year anniversary of the Wii U. Is there anything you would have liked to do differently, if you could go back and re-do it?
RFA: You know, what drives a system are those key must-have games. When we launched the Wii U, we were pointing to Pikmin, we were pointing to Wii Fit U, and we were pointing to Zelda and Mario—so all of these great games that are coming out now? We wanted them to come out by the end of March last year. That’s been the biggest challenge we’ve had. We knew we had a great line-up. We wanted it to launch much earlier to drive the system. So, what does that mean going forward?
That means that we have to make sure that the pipeline for new games has that steady pace. We’ve had it arguably since July, in terms of that regular pace of games—and guess what? The Wii U has responded, and we just have to make sure that that pace is consistent. We’ve got Wii Fit U in January, and Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze in February. [Mario] Kart is still Spring 2014—no solid release date, it’s still just Spring. All we’ve said for Smash Bros. is 2014.
S: Now that Mr. Iwata is the CEO of Nintendo of America, are you going to see a greater emphasis on regional games developed here in the Americas?
RFA: The fact of the matter is, we have two internal studios that are based in the U.S.: we’ve got Retro, and we’ve got NST. In addition, there are a number of key relationships we have with companies based here in the Americas. The team that did Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon, for example, is up in Vancouver. We’re looking to build more and more relationships with great developers here—developers who can take some of our best franchises and help create fantastic content.
S: How long does Nintendo intend on releasing games for the Wii?
RFA: Well, in terms of Nintendo-published titles, we’re not publishing any more Wii games—neither are we publishing any more DS games. Third parties are publishing for them – but we’re focused on driving the install base of the Wii U. From a licensing perspective, it’s tough to ignore a 100 million unit install base on Wii, and a 150 million unit install base on the DS, but from a Nintendo first-party perspective? We have to focus on driving the install base of the new platforms, because if we don’t do it, no one else will.
S: Going off of that, how much do what fans want or say influence your decisions? [Operation Moonfall and Operation Rainfall are cited as examples here.]
RFA: I have to tell you—it doesn’t affect what we do. We certainly look at it, and we’re certainly aware of it, but it doesn’t necessarily affect what we do. I’ll give you an example. I mentioned earlier that our head of product development had a bet on X versus Y—we also had a bet around localizing Xenoblade.
I wanted to bring Xenoblade here. The deal was, how much of a localization effort is it? How many units are we going to sell, are we going to make money? We were literally having this debate while Operation Rainfall was happening, and we were aware that there was interest for the game, but we had to make sure that it was a strong financial proposition.
I’m paid to make sure that we’re driving the business forward—so we’re aware of what’s happening, but in the end we’ve got to do what’s best for the company. The thing we know [about petitions] is that 100,000 signatures doesn’t mean 100,000 sales.
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