Iwata: Wii Fit Plus, Sports Resort and New Mario will sell 10m each

“I believe that Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit Plus and New Super Mario Bros Wii all have the potential to surpass 10m copies worldwide in the whole fiscal year,” he told investors.

“They were all highly evaluated by most of those who actually tried them at E3. Distributors have said that Nintendo will be key player of this holiday season as expected.”

Iwata also revealed that Mario Kart Wii has sold 15.4m units and Wii Fit 16.37m units.

Elsewhere in the investor call, Iwata admitted that the underperforming sales of both Wii Music and Animal Crossing: Let’s Go To The City were to blame for the publisher’s recent lacklustre financial posting.

“Wii Music and Animal Crossing did not fulfil our expectations and only sold through 2.65m and 3.38m copies respectively,” Iwata told investors.

“Should those two titles have become long-term selling software, we would not have faced a shortage of software titles in the former half of this year.

“We find that the reason of downturn in Wii sales can be attributed to two main factors – we could not launch Wii Sports Resort earlier and could not make the software launched in the last holiday season have longer tails.

“I am not worried about the launch schedules of Wii Fit Plus and Super Mario Bros. Wii.”