Evil marketing delays?

Nintendo has always delayed a game to make it better versus making a release date, but the slew of Wii titles being delayed has me thinking this may just be pure marketing. Put your self in their corporate shoes. Your system is selling out everywhere, why would you waste quality Nintendo titles that usually sell systems during a time when the system is selling itself?

Wii Play was delayed from Jan. to Feb. Mario Party 8 has been delayed from March to Summer. Pokemon Battle Revolution has been delayed from the expected date around Diamond & Pearl to 'a few months later'. Maybe these titles needed some polishing, but since two of them were already out in other countries, Nintendo could have launched them sooner. I understand that Pokemon needs a good online network, which may not be ready in the US, but Nintendo could have it done much faster if they wanted.

The fact is that the Wii is still selling out to crowds of people lined up each week. Nintendo has no need to push out games when third parties are increasing the library of the Wii by themselves. This ends up being a win-win for all corporate parties involved. Nintendo gets to keep its high quality titles to when the system really needs it (system selling slow-down) and third parties don't have to compete against the massive selling power of Nintendo published games.

This all may upset the hardcore crowd, but Nintendo is going after a more mainstream audience. They need to time their releases very carefully, and make sure they have games up their sleeves for when third parties have a dry month. As long as there is a steady stream of games for the general public, people probably won't care too much that the games aren't coming from Nintendo. And when these titles finally make it out into the marketplace, the hardcore crowd will make sure they are best sellers, no matter when they arrive.

My hope is that even if this is a marketing maneuver by Nintendo, they take the extra time to polish their games even further. Either way, the games will be awesome when they arrive, but waiting for them will be agony.

Sources

Mario Party 8 delay http://wii.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=9075    Votes: 1

Posted by BigWiiMan

Views: 694     Votes: 1

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