Iwata: DS in need of "big hit title"

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has said an investors meeting that a "big hit title" is needed to combat dwindling sales of DS hardware in Europe.

Speaking at the meeting, he said that Wii is also lacking of big titles, despite having Super Mario Galaxy 2 releasing next month and Metroid: Other M in Q3 this year in the region.

"In the U.S., Xbox360 has been keeping the lead over PS3 this year, he said. "In Europe, on the other hand, while Xbox360 was showing the decline, PS3 has shown increase since the fall of 2009. It appears that the benefit of third party publishers' big multiplatform titles has been mainly contributing to PS3.

"On the other hand, the sales of Nintendo DS hardware in Europe are showing a year-on-year decrease, unlike the United States market," While Wii has been embracing big hit titles since the latter half of 2009, not many strong titles to significantly drive hardware sales have been launched for Nintendo DS for a while."

He further adds: "So, we recognize that we are coming to the stage where we need to offer a hit title that can gain social phenomena and catch our customers' attentions."

So there you have it. Get cracking on a new Zelda DS title, Nintendo.

Thanks, Edge.