Nintendo points to Tohoku earthquake as one reason for slow 3DS and Wii U starts
Both of Nintendo’s latest systems came slowly out of the gate. For the 3DS, this led to a price drop just a few months after the hardware launched. The Wii U has also performed under expectations thus far, which has been attributed to a lack of strong software.
The 2011 Tohoku earthquake in Japan may be one reason for the Wii U and 3DS’ slow starts. Speaking with Japanese monthly magazine SAPIO, Nintendo discussed how the natural disaster impacted both systems:
We launched the Nintendo 3DS on February 2011 and sales were strong. Two weeks later we were hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake (Editor’s note: that’s how the Japanese call the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake) and that stopped the momentum. In august of the same year we lowered the price from the initial 25,000 Yen to 15,000 Yen, and enhanced software development at the same time, to enrich the game line-up.
That paid off and we regained momentum in Japan, but due to that we could not spare many developers for the Wii U (released in November 2012), and that led to the slow start of the console.
