LiteralGrill
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Nintendo's Third Quarter Financial Results Briefing has been released and is available for the public to read. Among some of the information presented by Nintendo's President Satoru Iwata is information regarding Super Smash Brothers, amiibos, console and game sales, games coming to stores this year, and more.
In the Japanese market, Nintendo managed to break a record that had been in place since the year 2000 having 5 Double-Million selling games on a Nintendo console which also broke their previous expectations to only have four such titles. First party titles that helped to break this record include Pokémon Omega Ruby and Pokémon Alpha Sapphire with 9.35 million units shipped worldwide and Super Smash Bros for 3DS with 6.19 million units shipped worldwide. There was also an interesting comment about Smash 3DS sales in Europe:
"The "Super Smash Bros." series is not as popular or well-known in Europe as in Japan and the U.S. This is why the initial sales of "Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS" were not strong in Europe. As the time goes by after the release, however, the sales have picked up thanks to word-of-mouth." -Satoru Iwata
The New Nintendo 3DS which has been of interest to Smash players due to its added control stick and zl and zr buttons and built in amiibo support has also interested many other game players with its face tracking 3D, improved camera and more. Sales of the New Nintendo 3DS have vastly outdone those of the 3DS XL and the special edition Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate and Majora's Mask models have been done incredibly well.
"We also launched special-edition hardware on that day. I have received reports that pre-orders for this limited-edition hardware went so well that many retailers closed them before the launch date and the hardware almost sold out on the launch date." - Sataru Iwata
Nintendo also announced plans to "further promote multiplayer Local Play in order to further accelerate the expansion of Nintendo 3DS in overseas markets" due the the popularization of handheld gaming in Japan through franchised like Pokemon, Monster Hunter, and YOKAI WATCH (a Japanese exclusive title).
Wii U news is not bad, but definitely not as exciting as the news shared on sales for the 3DS. Mario Kart 8 with 4.77 million units shipped wolrdwide was noted in helping expand the Australian market significantly for the Wii U as well as helping with sales globally, and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U's 3.39 million units shipped by the end of last year were mentioned as well. The Wii U has been selling much better overseas then in Japan however with overseas sales increasing as Japanese sales decrease. Nintendo has attributed this to the New 3DS gaining more attention then the Wii U in Japan. There are still hurdles to overcome for Wii U console sales however.
As I have explained, there are hurdles we are yet to clear regarding the Wii U hardware sales expansion in Japan and Nintendo 3DS hardware sales in the U.S. and in Europe during the last year-end sales season.
- Satoru Iwata
- Satoru Iwata
However Nintendo remains positive about their future game sales and cites their games being highly reviewed and their Metacritic scores being high as a way to show that fantastic games are being put out on their consoles. An info-graphic they previously released via their Facebook page shows how more of their titles have received and 85+ Metacritic score AND a 8.5+ user score than Ps4, Xbox One, and the PS Vita combined and how this trend is continuing with The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D and Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate also receiving high Metacritic scores.
Digital sales on all of their consoles have also been improving, with a 17% increase within Japan as "the Americas dramatically increased its proportion, followed by Europe" with the US in particular up about 13% since 2008.
As of the end of last year 5.9 million amiibo units have shipped world wide, with the majority of them coming to the United States and Canada as shown by the chart above. Iwata also mentioned: "Some figures are sold out and are being sold at online auctions at premium prices – something which none of us had predicted." For those worried about amiibos continuing to be restocked there was a statement regarding this as well: "It is difficult for us to promise to continuously ship all of the amiibo figures. We will, however, consider additional production in cases such as when an amiibo figure sells out shortly after launch, an amiibo is indispensable to play a certain game, and when we receive a lot of requests for an amiibo figure from consumers and retailers."
"This is the regional top sales ranking chart of each amiibo figure. This does not perfectly represent the popularity or demand for each character because some amiibo were out-of-stock in some regions, but you can certainly see some regional differences in the sales trends." - Satoru Iwata
"This chart shows the amiibo figures with a high retail sell-through rate in each region. Some of the amiibo listed here are already sold out and are now difficult to obtain." - Satoru Iwata
There are also more plans for what amiibos will be able to do in the future as well including amiibos in the form of cards which is planned to happen this year, a fee-download app for the Wii U which is planned to come out in the first half of this year that will allow you to play highlighted scenes from NES or Super NES games related to the amiibo used with it, and that the external NFC reader/writer for the Nintendo 3DS will be coming Summer of this year.
"This slide shows the Wii U titles that have already been announced for release in 2015. Even though there are more to announce, this slide contains many titles which fully utilize the GamePad." - Satoru Iwata
With more Wii U games possibly in the wings to announce Nintendo has also stated they plan to continue following "Mr. Miyamoto’s GamePad Utilization Project" which involves games that better utilize the gamepad as well as more games with User-Generated Content. You can also see the list for First-Party 3DS titles as well as the list for Third-Party 3DS titles. Iwata also mentions how he has "heard about the development plans for many more titles that have not been announced and hence are not shown" for the 3DS as well, so there may be other exciting games announced for the console in the future.
For those interested in seeing the report in its entirety it can be found by clicking here. There are plenty of interesting things to read and discuss related to this financial report, who knows what new games may be announced in the coming year and what other interesting developments may unfold!
SmashCapps also enjoys charts, data, and sifting through them so writing this was a real treat. Go follow SmashCapps on Twitter to discuss all of these interesting developments.
