Many Wii U fans were disappointed to hear that first party Nintendo titles such as Pikmin 3 were delayed until March 2013. But Nintendo had a good reason to do so, apparently. Their plan was to launch the Wii U with Pikmin 3, but after third party publishers showed great support for the Wii U at launch and beyond, Nintendo decided to move some of the key first party titles to a later date.
This comes from Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, who said that “Nintendo tends to release too many titles at the launch of a hardware system”, and because of that, the new console “suffers a drop” in new games after the launch, Iwata told investors.
Nintendo doesn’t want that to happen with the Wii U, and because third party publishers showed support for the Wii U, Nintendo was able to “push back the release of some of the titles that we had originally intended to release as launch titles until next year”, as Iwata puts it.
Some of the first party titles that have been pushed from launch include Pikmin 3, Wii Fit U, Game & Wario, and LEGO City Undercover. The Wii U will still launch with key first party games such as Nintendo Land and New Super Mario Bros U.
In addition, Nintendo is working on bringing all of their major franchises to the Wii U. They’ve confirmed to be working on a Wii U Zelda game, Super Smash Bros U, and we’ve heard hints of Mario Kart and Metroid as well.
