No 'Magic Number' for Wii Sales Success, Nintendo Says

Games made for the Wii can be a financial success without selling 1 million copies, said Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime.

Publishers' success on the popular platform is determined by a wide variety of factors, he told Wired.com in a phone interview Tuesday, contradicting a recent report in The New York Times.

"The fact is, there's no single magic number that defines profitability for a game," Fils-Aime said. "It's all based on the level of investment, based on the price point, and so it's unfortunate that I was misquoted in that article."

The New York Times article in question, "Videogame Makers Challenged by the Next Wave of Media," attributed to Fils-Aime the assertion that Wii publishers would not turn a profit unless they sold more than 1 million units of their software. In a follow-up blog post, the Times' writer said he quoted the Nintendo executive accurately, but that the company later contacted the paper by e-mail to say that Wii games could indeed turn a profit without hitting the magic 1 million unit level.

Wired.com contacted the Times for clarification Tuesday morning. Our full interview with Fils-Aime will be online later this week.

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