Report: Japanese Publishers Increase Wii And DS Support

A report from VarietyAsiaOnline has suggested that a number of prominent Japanese publishers are increasing support for the Nintendo DS and Wii, while at the same time decreasing shipments for PlayStation 3 and other Sony format titles. The article translates the results of a Nikkei newspaper survey, which suggest that Namco Bandai will increase its support for Nintendo formats, with 115 individual titles scheduled for release in the fiscal year 2007 – up 109 percent on the previous year. Support from Sega will increase by 96 percent to 49 titles over the year, while support from Capcom will rise by 5 percent to 20 titles. It is unclear whether the number of games mentioned from each publisher includes SKUs for the same game in different regions. Although the article refers to the publishers as the “three majors” in Japanese publishing no mention is made of Konami – traditionally considered the largest third party publisher in Japan and in recent times the least supportive of non-Sony home console formats. The article also repeats press reports concerning Square Enix, now a strong supporter of Nintendo formats, which suggests that the publisher will not develop any new titles for the PlayStation 3 until sales improve. The VarietyAsiaOnline article continues by suggesting that Namco Bandai, Sega and Capcom will cut shipments of titles for Sony formats by 30 to 40 percent, with Capcom set to increase shipments by 81 percent to 4.7 million units. Shipments of Nintendo titles, the article claims, will rise to 26.88 million in the 2007 fiscal year, compared to 23.29 million titles for Sony formats.