With the mass success of Super Mario Galaxy, Wii Sports and other Wii properties in the United States, it makes us ponder whether video game development will escalate there. Nintendo of America’s senior vice president George Harrison disagrees as he states that there are no plans to pursuit to push software development in the west.

“I’m not aware of any plans to push for more software development here in the U.S.,” Harrison told Wired News, when asked if Nintendo wanted to develop more games for a North American audience.

“The actual decision about producing more software and who should do it is driven by Satoru Iwata and the management team, including Mr. Miyamoto, in Japan,” he said.

Harrison mentioned that Nintendo is looking towards third-party software publishers to create games that suit the western audience. Reasons to justify this can be seen from looking into the past in which NOA tried to expand into North American development with titles such as N-Space’s Geist (which didn’t receive positive reception) and the cancelled Nintendo Pennant Chase Baseball. Metroid Prime 3 (created by Texas’ based Retro Studios) was, undoubtly, greatly successful on NA shores as the first-person shooter was originally created with the western audience in mind. Its a shame this doesn’t provide enough of an incentive to push North American game development.

Source: Wired Blog Network