Satoru Iwata, the big cheese at Nintendo, has sprung to the defense of Wii Music. He’s said it “has not achieved its true potential.”

Last time I checked, the thing didn’t even have potential. What’s behind those words? Unnecessarily cynical opinions await after the jump…

Iwata’s words demand much scrutiny, and there’s number of ways we can look at them. Don’t fear though, dear reader, for none of them are sympathetic.

There’s the “money” point of view. He could easily be saying: “We thought Wii Music would sell out in an instant, because everyone would snap it up since we told them to. For some reason or another, they didn’t mindlessly grab it off the shelves, so the moneygrabbing potential of Wii Music wasn’t fulfilled. Maybe we’ll promise 3 more instruments in the next one and more flailing, and they’ll buy it up like hotcakes.”

The man pretty much said it himself: ”To generate strong sales, we need to effectively communicate Nintendo’s messages to our consumers.” In other words, there needs to be more celebrity-fronted advertising featuring stars and their families hilariously trying to play a saxophone. That’ll keep the money reeling in.

Then there’s the “missed audience” point of view. Wii Music obviously didn’t have enough ‘typical’ gaming features to attract the hardcore audience, so perhaps Wii Music 2 will allow players to choose a weapon instead of an instrument. This would mean that players could perform for an audience, or shoot them to pieces. In fact, in saying that “Wii Music simply might have not been the right game for [some consumers], ” Iwata has practically confirmed a feature like this for the next game.

Those are just two points of view. Personally though, I’d like to think that Iwata is on the verge of admitting that Wii Music is the first of many future failures for Nintendo. As much as they’d like to think that their console is near-invincible, it’s becoming obvious that people are tiring of their Wiis very quickly. Wii Sports has been worn out, Wii Fit has done well and has vanished into obscurity, and Wii Music has faltered and collapsed like the fat kid in running class.

“There are people who highly appreciate it and those who do not appreciate it at all,” remarked Iwata. In other words, there are morons, and sensible gamers. Obviously, Nintendo’s consumer base is running low on idiots these days; unfortunately, it won’t stop them from putting out the same turgid crap in the hope that someone, somewhere, will still buy it. And someone will.

Iwata: Wii Music Didn’t Reach Potential – Kotaku