For all the backlash that Nintendo has brought upon itself with the Switch 2, one contributing factor was the fact that its Welcome Tour, the software that serves as a tutorial to the handheld console hybrid, is not bundled in. Plenty of comparisons have been drawn to the PS5 and its Astro’s Playroom that you don’t even need to download, Or the Steam Deck’s Aperture Desk Job that was free, even if it needed to be downloaded separately. Former president for Nintendo of America Reggie Fils-Aime has recently weighed in on the situation.
By weighing in though, it looks a lot like Fils-Aime taking jabs at what Nintendo is doing with the Switch 2 Welcome Tour. Via his account on X, he puts up three posts, all of which are snippets of a two-year old interview with IGN. The long and short of it was the detailing of his efforts to not only have Wii Sports bundled in with the Wii, but also Wii Play with the Wii Remote. And both times getting Nintendo representative director Shigeru Miyamoto very mad at him.
The story of Wii Sports pack in …https://t.co/LhflSFWaL3
— Reggie Fils-Aimé (@Reggie) April 9, 2025
But it all paid off, by Fils-Aime’s account anyway. In the Americas and Europe, Wii Sports and Wii Play were ultimately packed-in, but not in Japan, leading to the latter serving as a “test market”. As a result though Wii Sports and the Wii itself “became much more of a phenomenon” in the Americas and Europe compared to Japan. Wii Play also went on to be the “fifth best selling piece of software in the history of Wii”.
Fils-Aime also says that the Wii was not the first time that Nintendo hardware got software bundled in either, referencing the SNES. One can argue that Miyamoto was defending the hard work of the company’s developers against being given away for free. Which is fair, but it’s probably not the best time to do so when the new hardware has such a massive price jump compared to its predecessor, and with games potentially pushing the envelop for other publishers to follow.
(Source: Reggie Fils-Aime / X)
