New Nintendo

Nintendo of America Big Cheese Reggie Fils-Aime, our favorite video game related celeb, sat down to talk about future pricing for the upcoming Wii U, the successor to the Wii that’s due sometime next year, as well as Nintendo’s performance during the holiday period. Not much in the way of big exciting news, but he reiterated that Wii U will probably be more expensive than Wii. Of course, what’s interesting to note is that he made this statement with reference to the current pricing…make of that what you will.

Check out his full statement.

The market is going to continue to differentiate based on the types of experiences that consumers want. As an example, if I’m the head of a household of a family of four, and my disposable income is $50,000 to $60,000, I’m going to continue to look at the Wii because of the software, and it’s a great entertainment device. For consumers who want to have the latest gadgets and have a higher disposable income, that’s for the Wii U.

We haven’t announced pricing or availability or any other details, but given the current pricing of the Wii, it’s not going to be there.

We’ve been very clear, the market is going to decide how long these products will coexist side by side. Our goal is to launch the Wii U and drive it into the marketplace, but it will speak to a different consumer than the one that is buying the Wii today during the holidays.

He also commented on sales for the holiday’s biggest games. Wii and 3DS have performed well so far, and Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 both proved (as we’ve already heard and seen) to move some serious hardware (not to mention software) – there were almost as many 3DS units sold during Mario Kart‘s first week as copies of the game, which goes to show how much it’s driving sales.

And in case you were worried (note: you shouldn’t be), Reggie also reminded us that Nintendo isn’t planning to take their business off of Nintendo hardware any time soon, and tried to explain why the social gaming business isn’t quite up to par with what console software has to offer. Let us know what you think about his explanation for Mario Kart 7‘s efforts to innovate despite sticking mostly to the core of the kart-racing experience. Do you think Nintendo has been successful in terms of providing innovative software on Wii, DS, and 3DS, or do you think they’ve stuck too closely to tradition?

Source: All Things Digital, via MyNintendoNews