Fils-Aime - Wii games must sell 1 million to turn profit

News by Patrick Garratt Founder & Publisher (Former)

Published on March 31, 2009

NoA boss Reggie Fils-Aime's told the New York Times that Wii games won't get into the black unless they hit 1 million sales.

Hey, Platinum: look at this!

Reggie Fils-Aime, chief marketing officer for Nintendo of America, said publishers of games for its Wii console needed to sell one million units of a game to turn a profit. He said that was a lower threshold than for the other consoles. Only 16 out of 486 games for Nintendo Wii game machines have sold more than one million units as of March 1, according to NPD, which tracks the sales of consumer products. (Nine of the best sellers are made by Nintendo.)

Mr. Fils-Aime said Nintendo recognized the economics were changing when it developed the Wii. He said the company deliberately did not add high-definition capability to the Wii so games would be cheaper to make.

By those figures, that means that only 3.29 percent of Wii software's profitable.

Them's hot odds.