Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Videos | 0 comments

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 26 Comments

Well, this is certainly a huge deal. We now have confirmation that Nintendo is bringing the gold Mario to retail, and it will be a Walmart exclusive. That’s based on some promotional material found from the retailer.

News about a gold Mario amiibo first leaked out earlier this month. The same leak suggested that a silver Mario amiibo will be available at some point as well.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 9 Comments

In contrast to the current figure-shaped amiibo available, we will make amiibo in the form of cards this year as one of our future plans as Mr. Miyamoto mentioned at the Corporate Management Policy Briefing in October.
We are also planning a free-download app for Wii U in which you can enjoy NES and Super NES games with your amiibo in the first half of this year.
With this app, once you tap your amiibo on the NFC area of the GamePad, you will be able to play highlighted scenes of one certain title for NES or Super NES. You cannot play the entire game due to a time limit, but another tap of the amiibo will enable you to try another highlighted scene in the game. We hope that when you tap your amiibo, the quickly changing game scenes will pleasantly surprise you and make you feel as though you have just exchanged a game cartridge.
Even though only Wii U has been compatible with amiibo so far, we are making steady progress on compatibility with the Nintendo 3DS platform. New Nintendo 3DS is equipped with NFC as a standard feature. For existing Nintendo 3DS systems, we will release an external NFC reader/writer in summer this year. On the software side, “Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS” started to support amiibo after a software update in February.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 3 Comments

We also launched amiibo, our new category of products, at the same time as “Super Smash Bros. for Wii U.”
We had already shipped 5.7 million units worldwide by the end of last year.
amiibo is performing especially well in the U.S., Canada and Australia. Some figures are sold out and are being sold at online auctions at premium prices – something which none of us had predicted.

I can say that amiibo has kicked off smoothly, as it is a brand-new product category, launched with a much lower recognition rate than other action figure related proposals from other companies.

First of all, amiibo is a series of “game-connectable figures” supported by multiple titles.
“Super Smash Bros.” was the first title to support amiibo, followed by “Mario Kart 8,” “Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker,” and “Kirby and the Rainbow Curse.” We are planning further compatibility in various software titles.
amiibo is offered at a more affordable price range than packaged game titles, so consumers may feel the hurdle has been lowered to buy them one by one without seasonal gaps. In fact, considering the recent sales, amiibo has shown a smaller decline after the year-end sales season in various markets in the world than packaged titles. Also, I think amiibo can contribute to maintaining active use rates of Nintendo platforms by periodically bringing fresh topics to the applicable software through releases of new amiibo figures.
The first amiibo series after “Super Smash Bros.” will be “Super Mario,” which is compatible with “Mario Party 10.”
We are going to add various changes to the appearances of amiibo store shelves including the “Super Smash Bros.” series. As store shelf space is limited, some amiibo may become standard models while others may be replaced once they sell out.
If this is possible, amiibo will maintain a constant presence in stores, which will be beneficial for all Nintendo platforms.

This is a pie chart indicating the regional shipment breakdown of amiibo from its launch until the sixth week of this calendar year.
As you can see at a glance, the sector in red representing the U.S. and Canada accounts for a significant portion: 63 percent. The sell-through proportion of the total shipment is approximately 70 percent in each of Japan, U.S. and Canada, and Europe while it reaches 90 percent in Australia.

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.

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.
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.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, New Nintendo 3DS, News, Wii U | 4 Comments

Additional information has come out of Nintendo’s latest financial results briefing – sales data in particular. You can find the latest details below.

– Wii U’s software sales in Japan, US, Europe and Australia from April to September increased by over 200 percent from the same period last year
– Multiple factors for this
– One factor is the release of Mario Kart 8 in May and E3 2014
– The increase is especially high in Australia, which is due to their “Toy Catalog Season” in June-July, which lines up with Mario Kart 8’s launch
– Hardware sales also saw a spike in Australia due to the same reasons as the software sales rise
– New 3DS XL in U.S. and Europe sold over three times as much as the original 3DS XL did during its own launch period
– Once again, worldwide amiibo shipments were 5.7 million at the end of 2014
– Iwata says that normally sales of items such as amiibo would drop after the holiday seasons and so the release of new waves and deploying them with titles such as Mario Party 10 will hopefully keep the momentum following
– Nintendo does plan on making a finite number of certain amiibo and letting them sell out
– Though again, some figures will consider producing more stock of figures if there is demand from retailers and consumers
– At the end of third quarter, download sales of digital titles reached 21.1 billion yen
– This is a 17 percent increase from last year
– Nintendo has seen huge increases in digital sales
– There is a significant spike in the US in particular starting from fiscal year 2013

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 10 Comments

We now have a full breakdown of the best-selling amiibo for each major region. Specific numbers haven’t been provided, though we do have rankings. Check out the full lineups in the graphic above.

The above graphic is for sales rankings. For sell-through rankings (percentage of stock sold), check out the lineups below.

North America

1. Marth
2. Villager
3. Wii Fit Trainer
4. Pit
5. Captain Falcon
6. Link
7. Fox
8. Rosetta & Luma
9. Samus
10. Yoshi

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 16 Comments

Following up on the amiibo stock situation, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has weighed in on figures that may be replenished in the future.

Iwata noted during Nintendo’s financial results briefing today that it’s difficult to continue shipping all types of amiibo due to limits on production lots, delivery dates, and retail space. However, he did say figures that have quickly become scarce and are needed to play in games will be considered for more production – assuming demand exists from consumers and retailers.

Marth is one amiibo that will be restocked later this year, though it’s unclear when additional product will be made available.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 15 Comments

Ever since the first wave of amiibo released, some consumers have been forced to deal figures that have received little stock, creating the scalper situation. amiibo like Marth and Villager have generated large prices on auction sites such as eBay.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata commented on this ever-so-briefly today, noting that some amiibo have been selling out in North America, Europe, and Australia. The company did not expect figures to end up going for high prices on auction sites (thus resulting in scalpers).

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 30 Comments

If you weren’t already concerned about the stock situation surrounding amiibo, perhaps that will change soon. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata confirmed during today’s financial results briefing that the company is preparing one run limited edition amiibo. Additional information was not shared.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 13 Comments

We have yet another amiibo update from Nintendo’s latest financial results briefing. President Satoru Iwata revealed that Link is the most popular figure in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Japan. The only exception is Australia, where Mario is the amiibo with the highest popularity.

Iwata also shared a breakdown of amiibo with the highest sell-through rate:

US = Marth
JPN = Captain Falcon
EUR = Little Mac
Australia = Ike

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