Scott Moffitt, executive vice president of marketing at Nintendo of America, attended the official U.S. Wii U launch at the Nintendo World store in New York City. He talks about the importance of getting mainstream consumers to try Wii U and discusses the improvements the second wave of games will bring in this exclusive interview. He also promises that more Wii Us are heading to store shelves for the busy Christmas shopping window.
How are you getting the Wii U out there in front of consumers with hands-on this holiday?
We have interactives installed in over 5,000 stores across America from GameStop to Target to Wal-Mart. Gamers can go in those stores and play, experiment with the system, see videos, and learn more information. We also have a holiday mall tour. Consumers can go into 20 cities around the country and be able to play the games, ask about services, experiment with the console, and have some fun.
How does Wii U’s launch compare to the Wii?
First of all, the game line-up on Day One is broader. We have 30 games available on Day One ranging from the corest of core titles like ZombieU and Assassin’s Creed III down to casual titles like Nintendo Land, Rayman Legends and New Super Mario Bros. U. So we have content for everybody, and that’s going to be a great for the Wii U. We know content sells hardware, and we have a great lineup of games.
How has the demand for Wii U thus far compared to the Wii?
Demand has been phenomenal. As you’ve seen, stores are selling out of their pre-sell quantities. We want consumers to know upon launch they can go into their stores, and there will be new quantities available there to go in and buy. There may be lines, and we do anticipate tremendous demand. We’ll do our best to keep up with it, but there should be a great quantity available at launch. We know that for this launch week, we will have more available than we did during the Wii launch.
The second thing you should know is we’ll have more replenishment during the holiday season to replenish those stocks and refill those store shelves as quickly as we can. We can’t guarantee there won’t be shortages, but we’ll do our best to keep up with it.
Analysts have said there will be between 1 and 1.5 million Wii Us available in the U.S. this year. How will Nintendo keep up with the demand in 2013?
What we’ve announced is that there will be 5.5 million consoles shipped from Day One through the end of our fiscal year, which is March 31. We haven’t actually broken those numbers down by region, so we haven’t disclosed how many will be available in the U.S. Since the U.S. is launching first, you can expect there probably would be more available in the U.S. than in other territories. We’re going to manufacture as many as we can to keep up with demand, and hopefully we can do that this time.
I think what’s important is that we have a great range of content available for gamers of all interests and all abilities. That’s what’s important; whether it’s a port, an original game, or an exclusive game, that’s less important. If you think about Nintendo franchises, all the Mario games and Zelda games are all exclusive to the platform, but we don’t like to think of it in those terms. What really matters is that the content is great, and it takes full advantage of the GamePad to give consumers a new, interesting way to game that they really enjoy and brings a new idea to the world of gaming.
We know those are fan-favorite franchises that consumers expect and look forward to. That’s why it’s important for us to have a Mario game here, Day One, at launch for the Wii U console. With new Super Mario Brothers U., which is an entirely new game, very fun, with new power-ups and new features, its fans are going to really enjoy that game.
Nintendo Land is a new IP as well. It incorporates many of those fan favorite franchises. I think gamers, beyond that, will be able to look forward to exciting games from many of our favorite Nintendo franchises as we roll along through the first and second year.
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