Publishers Sound Off on Wii Bundle

We're still tweaking the story that's up on the main page right now, but the important stuff is up there. I talked with representatives of the major software publishers today, gauging their reactions to the Wii launch announcements. They were mixed:

"From a third-party standpoint, we'd prefer to have a platform without a bundle," said Scott Steinberg, vice president of marketing at San Francisco game maker Sega. "There's a vote for 'no bundle' from every third party we've talked to."

Bundling a game with the hardware "obviously takes away sales, because people have one more game to play," says Laurent Detoc, president of the North American division of Ubisoft. "But it helps (Nintendo) reinforce their ability to launch successfully."

While both Sega and Ubisoft were totally high on the Wii – further quotes in the article confirm this beyond a doubt – they do both realize that packing in a piece of software with a console does depress software sales.

Check out the whole piece on the main site.