Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has told investors that he believes that Super Mario 3D World will be the title to help turn around the Wii U’s fortunes this Christmas. During the meeting Iwata admitted that titles such as Pikmin 3 and The Wonderful 101 hadn’t been anywhere near as successful as the company initially thought they would be.

“With respect to Wii U, on the other hand, I remarked at the Financial Results Briefing held back in April that we would carefully work on its market penetration, but its sales have not yet picked up significantly since the summer launches of some key first-party titles.”

“There have been large intervals between the releases of key first-party titles, and given that there is little seasonable demand at the moment, we are not in a position where we can change the fate of the system with just one title.”

“Fortunately, the year-end sales season is an opportunity in which various members of the family are likely to take an interest in Nintendo’s home consoles, so we will try to change the situation surrounding Wii U through our efforts for this year-end sales season.

“The key title that is going to drive this year’s year-end sales season is Super Mario 3D World, the latest installment in the Super Mario series that is set to be released in November.

“I feel that the trailers we have released so far already provide consumers with a taste of the quality of the game, but this is indeed a compelling product that provides both single and multi-player gameplay to a wide range of consumers from novice to experienced players of Mario action games.”

“Except for its backward compatibility with existing Wii software and accessories, we have so far failed to make propositions worthy of Wii U’s position as a successor to the Wii system. While it took more time than expected since the launch of Wii U, we are now ready to offer Wii Sports and Wii Fit for Wii U, two of the defining games for Wii, starting today.”

Thanks, Kathryn