Investor meeting: Nintendo talks about Wii U sales
During the usual meeting with investors, which always follows the presentation of the latest financial results, Nintendo talked about the sales of Wii U. First, a graph was shown: it compares sales for Wii U Software in Japan. We can see a noticeable increase in sales, which is due to Super Mario Maker and Splatoon: they kept their momentum until the end of the holiday period, which resulted in much stronger sales in 2015.
Ever since it launched, back in May, Splatoon’s popularity never faltered: its sales remained steady throughout the year. In Japan, there were noticeable boosts during summer vacations, public holidays, and the holiday period. Splatoon has sold over 1 million units in Japan alone, and over 4.06 million units worldwide.
Tatsumi Kimishima explained that Splatoon managed to expand even among kids and women, and it benefited from overwhelmingly positive word of mouth. Naturally, Nintendo wants players to keep on playing the game long after its release, and that’s why they have done, and are still doing, many in-game and real-life events (such as the Splatfests, the Splatoon Koshien 2016 tournament, and more).
Those events allow Nintendo to maintain a high usage rate and public attention for the game: with those, they are certainly not going to forget about it anytime soon.
Talking of Splatfests, Tatsumi Kimishima did give some data for Japan, and revealed that the number of participants has been increasing consistently since the first one. During the 10th Splatfest, which was held on January 23rd and 24th, approximately 690 000 players participated, which was an all-time high.
Another graph was shown, and compares the sales of Splatoon and Mario Kart 8. Even though Mario Kart 8 did debut significantly higher than Splatoon, Splatoon started outselling it consistently from the third week after launch. During the holiday, its sales received a much bigger boost than Mario Kart 8 did in 2014. What’s more, even though the holiday period is over, Splatoon is still selling steadily: Nintendo expects it to have the potential to be a long-selling title.
Super Mario Maker has also enjoyed steady sales, with over 3 million units shipped from launch to the end of Q3 2015-16. Thanks to the increase in new players due to the holiday period, the number of user-created levels has reached 6.2 millions. Those have been played over 400 million times as of January 27th.
Just like with Splatoon, Nintendo has been trying various things to keep players interested, and make sure they keep playing the game on a long period of time. For example, there’s been Software updates adding new elements, new Event courses with special costumes to unlock, or the Super Mario Maker Bookmark web portal (which allows players to easily find interesting levels to play).
The graph below shows sell-through numbers of Wii U Hardware in 2014 and 2015, in Japan. Splatoon and Super Mario Maker had a really beneficial impact on Wii U sales, especially during the holiday period with the Hardware bundles (the Splatoon bundle even sold out before the end of the year). The momentum provided by those two games (and their bundles) lasted until the end of the year, and so the Wii U ended 2015 with more units sold than in 2014.
The next graph shows sales of Nintendo-published titles in Europe and North America, in 2014 and 2015. Thanks to continued sales of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Mario Kart 8, and the launch of Splatoon and Super Mario Maker, sales of Nintendo-published titles on Wii U in 2015 exceeded those of 2014 (just like in Japan).
The last graph shows Wii U Hardware sales in Europe and North America, in 2014 and 2015. Thanks to Splatoon and Super Mario Maker, sales remained steady compared to 2014. For the holidays, Nintendo released some bundles:
- North America: Wii U + Splatoon + Super Smash Bros.
- Europe: Wii U + Splatoon + Mario Kart 8
Those two bundles had a pretty positive impact on sales, especially during the holiday period, which is why Wii U Hardware sales ended the year at more or less the same level as in 2014. In 2016, Nintendo’s goal will be to make it so that the players who bought a Wii U at Christmas keep using it, and buy new games for it.
Source: Nintendo
