Denise Kaigler, Nintendo of America’s vice president of corporate affairs, is unsure why third party Wii titles aimed at core gamers are struggling at retail, but says that she hopes sales will pick up over time.

Asked why titles such as MadWorld and The Conduit are failing to light up the software charts, she told Wired: “You know, I don’t know. It’s hard to say. It could be titles have the same type of sales curve that a lot of Nintendo titles have. A lot of Nintendo titles don’t follow that traditional sales curve where they launch big and then that’s it. Our titles have a long tail. They build in popularity, and this could be the case with, as you mentioned, MadWorld and The Conduit. I’ve played both. I’m not a core gamer, and I found that they were challenging and fun.”

Sega’s Wii exclusive FPS The Conduit sold just shy of 72,000 units in the US during its debut month of June, while fellow core-focused third party Wii exclusives House Of The Dead: Overkill and Madworld moved 45,000 and 66,000 copies in their respective launch months earlier this year.

“We’re hopeful that the titles will catch on and that consumers who already have those games will spread the word and others will follow suit there," Kaigler added. "They’re deep experiences, and they’re very challenging titles, and we certainly like them. But it’s our hope that the games will pick up in popularity and they’ll continue to sell.”



The executive also said that Nintendo will continue to release titles that serve both the core and casual markets.

“We certainly want to make sure that we’re putting games on the market that casual and core alike enjoy. It’s certainly one of our primary areas of focus. And based on the popularity of the Wii, the Nintendo DS and DSi, that tells us we’re doing something right. As you know, we’ve got a very passionate fanbase out there — very vocal and very passionate, so they definitely tell us when they’re not happy. But the good thing is, they also tell us when they are happy. And we definitely got some really good response out of E3. They were certainly very happy with Metroid: Other M, and some of the other titles we announced at E3.”