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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 that Nintendo has been selling way many more games this year compared to 2014, and the release of Splatoon and Super Mario Maker obviously had a very visible impact.

About Splatoon, Tatsumi Kimishima mentioned the very positive reception among players, which translated into sales. In Japan alone, the game has sold over 905 000 units, which includes digital sales (which means the digital version of the game has sold around 168 000 units, 23% of total sales!). Nintendo is quite confident they will reach 1 million units for Splatoon before the end of the year, and it’s certainly not a pipedream.

What’s special about Splatoon is that Nintendo regular adds content to the game, and holds special events (Splatfests) on a regular basis, which really helps in the long term. With all this, players keep playing the game longer, which is very important in order to “keep up the operating rate and momentum of the software”.

As for Super Mario Maker, Tatsumi Kimishima reminded investors that it sold over 1 million units worldwide within the first three weeks. Of course, Nintendo will keep on promoting the game actively with the upcoming holiday period, in order to boost sales. As of last week, over 3.3 million courses have been created and the game, and they’ve been played over 150 million times.

The second graph compares Japanese Wii U sales in 2015 and 2014. The Wii U started the year by selling worse than in 2014, but the release of Splatoon reversed the trend. As for Super Mario Maker, it also had a pretty positive impact on sales, and allowed the Wii U to remain safely above its 2014 levels.

During the presentation, Tatsumi Kimishima noted that many consumers actually purchased a Wii U with Splatoon. He also talked again about those very special games (like Pokémon on GameBoy) which have been a “dramatic positive turning point” for their respective console. Nintendo believes Splatoon is one of those, which is why they’re going to release a Splatoon Wii U Premium Pack next month.

The company believe that Splatoon is the kind of game that will make many people buy a Wii U if its bundled with it. Its goal is to “keep consumers’ attention and increase sales over a long period of time”.

The next graph compares the Wii U Software sales (Nintendo-published titles only) in Europe and North America, in 2015 and 2014. It clearly shows a significant increase Year on Year, which is due to:

  • strong sales of already released titles (Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U)
  • the release of two strong titles (Splatoon and Super Mario Maker)

Finally, the last graph compares Wii U sales in Europe and North America, in 2015 and 2014. Unlike Japan, the release of Splatoon and Super Mario Maker didn’t have a significant impact on sales (which are below their levels last year), even though Nintendo feels they have been pushing sales nonetheless.

Nintendo is quite optimistic, and believes that trying to appeal to the younger generations will pay off in the end, with strong sales at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Finally, here’s a slide showing upcoming Wii U games:

Source: Nintendo

Lite_Agent

Founder and main writer for Perfectly Nintendo. Tried really hard to find something funny and witty to put here, but had to admit defeat.

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