Many felt slighted by Nintendo last year when the company focused its big holiday push around Wii Music. Though rumor has it that they had other plans, the fact remains that Nintendo's first-party holiday offerings revolved largely around a music game which had a very difficult time finding its niche.

Following their third-quarter results, Nintendo Co. Ltd. President Satoru Iwata spoke of the topic in a Q&A posted on Nintendo's Japanese website, noting that he feels Wii Music has not currently reached its true potential, and that the software triggers widely contrasting responses from consumers.

I agree that Wii Music, as of now, has not achieved its true potential. On the other hand, I feel that Wii Music is a software that elicits largely two extremely different reaction from consumers. There are people who highly appreciate it and those who do not appreciate it at all.

For Wii Music, the impression seems to completely depend on each individual player. It is unfortunate that Wii Music was not immediately appealing enough to some consumers, but it simply might have not been the right game for them.

However, Nintendo still has hope for the title. Remember Brain Age, the title which seems to have come to epitomize the "casual" audience and what Nintendo's "Blue Ocean" strategy is all about? Iwata notes that very title didn't become a hit until they released a sequel in Japan.

We do not like to think that we failed with Wii Music nor that we should abandon sales support. If we had approached Brain Age with that mentality, the software would have not achieved the current sales situation.

I wouldn't take this to mean that they're planning to make a Wii Music 2 and watch both take off. But I suppose you can never be certain.

Iwata turns the topic more towards the issue of the Wii's momentum seemingly slowing down in Japan, which has lead to some panic. Iwata notes that the release of Wii Music and Animal Crossing: City Folk were to hopefully appeal to those consumers, and revitalize the market. However...

Our efforts have not lived up to our expectation. While Wii had very strong momentum in the overseas markets, the Wii market in Japan (during the year-end sales season) showed a slow start, did not show sharp trajectory in sales, and ended up moving back to the sales level of non-sales-season level quickly.

So, what happened at the end of last year in Japan was simply that it did not go as we had planned.

Iwata adds that despite that, the sales of those two titles are "nowhere near that of failing software." Nintendo simply places extraordinarily high expectations upon its software, and these games simply did not meet them.

"To generate strong sales," Iwata says, "we need to effectively communicate Nintendo's messages to our consumers."