Iwata: first party success is good for business

Speaking to Newsweek, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has argued that the runaway success of first party titles on Wii will help third parties in the long run.

But he also claimed Nintendo's overwhelming dominance of Wii software sales would be short-lived.

Iwata was responding to concern that only half the total number of Wii games sold are from third parties, as Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime stated at E3 this year.

"I believe that third party publishers... don't want Nintendo to have more than one-third, otherwise, Nintendo will be too strong. They want to have two-thirds of what's being sold on the platform," said Iwata.

"However, I believe that the job of first party software is to drive hardware. If you don't have a quick impact and quick dissemination amongst the audience, you lose momentum," he contintued.

"If you don't have momentum, the third parties don't want to jump on your platform. So that's not a good situation to be in."

Iwata drew parallels with the early days of the DS, and noted that recently, sales of Nintendo games for the format have declined in favour of third party titles. He thinks the same will happen with Wii before long.

"I think it's unusual for Nintendo to have that strong a share at this point," he conceded.

"However, I think that's a phenomenon that's going to be limited to this year alone. Next year, we're going to see a larger number of third party software.

"And I guess the impression of Nintendo as too powerful or too dominant will dissipate."