In a previously unpublished E3 interview with Nintendo president Saturu Iwata, Newsweek's game guru N'Gai Croal put all the questions we've been wanting answered to the former developer, and surprisingly, Iwata had some pretty frank answers.
When asked about Nintendo's position on third parties selling on their consoles, Iwata implied the ratio of first to third party software is a balancing act, stating “I believe that third party publishers kind of look at the software titles that are being sold on Nintendo and they 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. 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. 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.”
But as an explanation for the current sales of third party games, he said "none of the big publishers out there really expected Wii to be the number one. But now that they see the success of the platform, they're really moving forward in that direction."
And Iwata was quick to point out that the success has not gone to his head, saying “I believe my most important role right now is to prevent Nintendo from being in a company where people say, "Oh, Nintendo is arrogant," "Nintendo has let its guard down," or "Nintendo has lost its challenging spirit," "We want to avoid all of the pitfalls that can come from losing one's momentum.”
It's worth checking out the full interview, as Iwata also discusses Zelda sales, third party game quality, how the Wii is like the DS, and sharing technology with third parties.
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