Nintendo talks about Wii U’s software droughts

In an interview with IGN, NoA president Reggie Fils-Aime talked about how Nintendo is dealing with software droughts where no major titles are released for its latest console. Catch the full conversation below:

IGN: One of the common patterns we keep seeing with Nintendo is a long gap between major games. We got Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze in February, but didn’t have another big game until Mario Kart 8. What is Nintendo doing to alleviate the software droughts between game releases?

Fils-Aime: “We’re doing a couple of things. First, we’re doing much more second-party development. Everything from Bayonetta 2, which is an exclusive to Wii U game, Devil’s Third is an exclusive to Wii U game. Certainly, leveraging more second-party development is critical to us. The other thing we’re doing is much more with independent developers. And I would argue that this is a big industry shift that’s happened over the last couple of years. You look at all of the developers that have left the large major third-parties to create their own small studio. We’ve been able to attract them not only with some of the tools made available, like Unity. But also the fact that these developers love having their content merchandised in our eShop right alongside Mario and right along Zelda versus putting them in separate area with all other Indie content. We merchandise it along with all of our other key games, which really helps the sell through of this independent content.”

“So second-party, independent content, along with great first-party content. Along with strong third-party as well, in terms of the support we’re getting from Ubisoft, Warner Bros., and a number of the Japanese third-party developers. For us, that’s how we have to mitigate this potential of longer wait times between product launch.”