Nintendo set for explosive April

The release of Wii Fit on April 25th will see the next chapter in the platform holder’s wider mission to seduce non-gamers, says Nintendo UK marketing director Dawn Paine.

And with Mario Kart arriving just a few weeks before on April 11th, Nintendo believes it will raise both mainstream and core gamer eyebrows as both Wii and DS continue to sell out at retailers nationwide.

We think Wii Fit is a very catalytic title for us and we think it is the next chapter in the true broadening of the marketplace,” she told MCV. We’ve achieved that already to some extent with both Wii and DS but with Wii Fit we think it’s going to be explosive in terms of the breadth of the appeal of the product – and retail is very excited by that.

With Mario Kart we think that there is a huge opportunity to appeal to both the core Mario Kart and Nintendo gamers – so we have very high expectations.”

With two triple-A titles on the way on Wii, and DS software continuing to shift major numbers, Paine added that Nintendo will be doing its utmost to meet the demand for Wii and DS hardware.

We try to be as absolutely transparent and equitable with our distribution as possible across retail. In terms of the stock situation every single week we are trying to ship in as much stock to UK retail as is humanly possible.”