Reggie Fils-Aime talk on New SMB Wii, Zelda, Red Steel 2, First Party Sales, Third Parties, and Vitality Sensor

When Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime speaks, he usually has plenty to say, and his recent talk with Kotaku’s Stephen Totilo is no exception.

Their discussion tackled a number of topics, from his desire to see New Super Mario Bros. Wii presented with online options to keeping quiet about The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, from third-parties not releasing their top titles from other platforms on the Wii to Nintendo’s own first-party shortcomings, and from disappointment that Red Steel 2 was pushed back to when we can expect to see more about the Wii Vitality Sensor.

About the lack of online in New Super Mario Bros. Wii, he said “This was a decision made purely by the developers.”

“They believe this experience, in the same room, to be elbowing your friends and family members as you’re playing the game [is ideal],” he continued. “It was really their decision. I personally would have loved for it to be online capable as well, but having played the game, I really can’t fault it for not being online multiplayer.”

Moving on to Spirit Tracks, Fils-Aime would admit that it is the game he is most looking forward to this holiday season. When asked why Nintendo kept such a tight lid on the game for most of the year, he replied “We believe that to tease fans over an extended period of time really doesn’t do the gamer just service.”

“So, we have always been mindful of: When’s the launch date? When’s the right time to share information? How do we break information? In particular, with this game, given the Zelda dynamic — which you find out about right at the start of the game — we really wanted to keep that secret and have it be a big reveal. That is something very new and very different in a Zelda game, [having] Princess Zelda essentially playing along with you. That’s essentially what drove the strategy for how we reveal the information, when do we reveal the information and the fact that it had to be fairly late.”

In addition, Fils-Aime was asked about an observation made by Kombo kolleague Matt Green on his personal blog, Press the Buttons. Asked why Japan and Europe were getting box art depicting Link and Zelda taking a train ride through the countryside, while America gets a sword-wielding Link standing alongside a towering Phantom on a much darker background, he said “We just thought the package art we developed with [Nintendo's Japanese headquarters office] NCL that highlights the train and highlights the Phantom… was a great representation of the game.”

Pressed further about whether this means American gamers want a tougher, more aggressive Link, Fils-Aime replied “Not at all,” noting that Zelda does sell more in North America than it does in the European and Japanese regions.

Earlier, we covered Fils-Aime’s dismissal of a high-definition Wii console coming in the foreseeable future, but during that conversation, he expressed his “extreme disappointment” at developers not bringing such top-tier product as Assassin’s Creed II and Modern Warfare 2 to the best-selling console.

“I’ve had this conversation with every publisher who makes content that is not available on my platform,” he said. “The conversation goes like this: ‘We have a 22-million unit installed base. We have a very diverse audience… We have active gamers that hunger for this type of content. And why isn’t it available?’”

“I think for those games, typically decisions are being made two years prior,” he continued. “And so the decisions two years ago were that those types of games would not be effective on the platform. But we’ve shown that that’s just not the case. High-quality, effectively marketed against our installed base will sell, period end of story.”

Fils-Aime would go on to discuss the widely-held notion that Nintendo is hurting its own franchises by utilizing “shorter hype cycles” prior to a game’s launch, such as the aforementioned Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. Fils-Aime said that it does not seem to be hurting their sales, with Wii Sports Resort selling nearly two million copies since its July launch, with most details only revealed in the month prior to release.

However, Totilo countered that smaller games such as Metroid Prime Trilogy, Fire Emblem, and Battalion Wars seem to be hurt by the smaller hype.

“I’m not satisfied with the volumes that we do on a Fire Emblem, for example, or a Battalion Wars,” Fils-Aime admitted. “These are high-quality games that I have challenged the team to think about: How do we up our marketing on these types of titles to do a more effective job?”

“And I think you are going to see that more with a title like [2010 Wii shooter] Sin & Punishment 2, where it is much more targeted to the active gamer. It is a title that I believe we need to do a better job getting out in front of.”

Reggie also noted that the new Nintendo Week shows on the Nintendo Channel were another way in which they were getting the word out.

The conversation moved to the MotionPlus, which despite the great sales of Wii Sports Resort, has only a few games to its name. Asked if they had planned for a greater roll-out, Fils-Aime said “Our hope was that Red Steel 2 would have launched in this holiday season. That’s a title that we had always looked at to be a key part of the strategy to drive the installed base of Wii MotionPlus. Having said that, even without the benefit of that launch, we’ve sold over four million at this point in time. That’s a very strong start.”

He added that Nintendo was working on more MotionPlus software, but did not divulge anything more than that.

Finally, about the Wii Vitality Sensor revealed at this year’s E3 presentation, Fils-Aime would only indicate that we would see more at next year’s show, though he did not elaborate on what kind of software (tech demos, planned games, full games) we could expect to see.