Nintendo has denied suggestions that its push into the digital download market has a negative impact on physical retail.

On the contrary; Nintendo's European boss Laurent Fischer gave our sister site Develop two main reasons why WiiWare benefits retailers.

In an interview published today he said:

“The first is having more people being able to play games. We know from all our experience that what people enjoy on the services makes their appetites for playing games far bigger. That’s the first benefit to retail.”

Said Fischer: “The other way is that WiiWare is a laboratory. What we know is that some of the games that are – you could say ‘tested’ through this platform – they may one day get access to the normal retail channels. That’s because the developers have managed to polish their software through the WiiWare experience. That is going to provide sales.”

Fischer went on to claim that retail remains the company’s core business.

“Other download services are complementary,” he said. “They just provide something that can’t exist alone in the retail system.”

The full interview can be found here.