Platforms

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, New Nintendo 3DS, News, Wii U | 48 Comments

The latest Japanese hardware sales from Media Create are as follows:

Wii U – 22,898
PS4 – 19,782
Vita – 17,748
New 3DS LL – 17,062
New 3DS – 5,901
PS3 – 3,956
3DS – 1,520
3DS LL – 1,465
Vita TV – 687
Xbox One – 341

For comparison’s sake, here are the hardware numbers from last week:

PS4 – 20,112
Vita – 15,467
New 3DS LL – 13,981
Wii U – 7,210
New 3DS – 5,329
PS3 – 4,248
3DS LL – 1,253
3DS – 1,095
Vita TV – 558
Xbox One – 201

And here are the software charts:

1. [3DS] Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition – 179,926 / NEW
2. [WIU] Dragon Quest X: Inishie no Ryuu no Denshou Online – 98,323 / NEW
3. [WIU] Xenoblade Chronicles X – 85,586 / NEW
4. [3DS] Bravely Second – 20,195 / 120,242
5. [3DS] Girls Mode 3 – 20,103 / 99,007
6. [PSV] Minecraft: PlayStation Vita Edition – 16,166 / 125,951
7. [PSV] Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata -Blessing Flowers- – 11,202 / NEW
8. [PSV] To Heart 2: Dungeon Travelers – 10,956 / NEW
9. [PSV] Tokyo Shinseiroku: Operation Babel – 8,104 / NEW
10. [WIU] Mario Kart 8 – 7,955 / 974,448
11. [3DS] Assassination Classroom: Grand Siege on Kurosensei – 7,141 / 63,814
12. [WIU] Mario Party 10 – 6,888 / 130,353
13. [3DS] Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire – 6,427 / 2,610,284
14. [PS4] Dying Light – 6,277 / 38,837
15. [3DS] Yo-Kai Watch 2: Shinuchi – 5,618 / 2,597,320
16. [3DS] Super Smash Bros. for 3DS – 5,272 / 2,220,527
17. [PS3] BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma Extend – 4,870 / 20,420
18. [PS3] One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3 – 4,652 / 146,633
19. [PS4] Tropico 5 – 4,495 / 13,201
20. [PS4] Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory II – 4,369 / 26,979

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More: charts, Japan, Media Create, sales, top

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 2 Comments

Yoshi’s Woolly World will be compatible with more than just the upcoming plushies and Yoshi figures. As revealed through the game’s Australian packaging, other amiibo such as Mario, Luigi, Peach and “more” unlock Yoshi designs based on the character scanned. No images yet, sadly!

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More: Amiibo, top, Yoshi's Woolly World

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, Screenshots | 0 comments

Marvelous sent out a new wave of PoPoLoCrois Farm Story screenshots today. You can find the full set of images below.

More: Japan, marvelous, PoPoLoCrois Farm Story

Posted on 10 years ago by Kirara Koneko(@KiraraKoneko) in 3DS, News | 1 Comment

Nintendo of Europe has just confirmed that Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley will arrive on European shores June 19 for 3DS.

Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley will arrive on Nintendo #3DS on 19th June. pic.twitter.com/57XoVbweIO

— Nintendo of Europe (@NintendoEurope) May 8, 2015

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Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Mobile, News | 2 Comments

And now, I would like to discuss our future business developments.

Right now, the game business is undergoing significant change. The spread of the Internet and social media has dramatically changed the lifestyles of people all over the world, and Nintendo is adjusting its strategic endeavors in line with the new market dynamics.

For one thing, in order to maximize the value of Nintendo IP, we are working to leverage opportunities that go beyond a traditional focus on dedicated video game systems. As you know, amiibo is one such effort. Also, we made the announcement that we will take advantage of smart devices. As smart devices are increasing in significance as the dominant window through which consumers connect with one another and with society, it is natural for us to leverage smart devices to communicate directly with our consumers.

In addition, to facilitate the ability for consumers to be closely and continuously connected with Nintendo IP, Nintendo will also deploy Nintendo IP on games for smart devices.

Regarding this subject, we announced our business alliance with DeNA on March 17. Each of our companies offers unique strengths, and we are confident that when combined, the synergies will enable us to compete strongly in the smart device space.

We will start the service for the first game application by the end of this calendar year. Internally at Nintendo, we have executed several organizational and personnel changes in order to properly operate the smart device business, and we will make further changes before the first release.

As we confirmed on March 17, all of our IP can be considered for a smart device game. On the other hand, since the game business on smart devices is already severely competitive, even with highly popular IP, the odds of success are quite low if consumers cannot appreciate the quality of a game. Also, if we were simply to port software that already has a track record on a dedicated game system, it would not match the play styles of smart devices, and the appropriate business models are different between the two, so we would not anticipate a great result. If we did not aim to achieve a significant result, it would be meaningless for us to do it at all. Accordingly, we are going to carefully select appropriate IP and titles for our smart device deployment.

Regarding the number of the titles, you may want to know that we will release approximately five titles by the end of the next fiscal year, which is the end of March 2017. You may think it is a small number, but when we aim to make each title a hit, and because we want to thoroughly operate every one of them for a significant amount of time after their releases, this is not a small number at all and should demonstrate our serious commitment to the smart device business.

We will strive to expand this business into global markets at a steady pace so that eventually we will entertain hundreds of millions of people all around the world. We are aiming to make this one of the pillars of Nintendo’s revenue structure.

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More: Satoru Iwata, top

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 16 Comments

Update: Bumped to the top. Post now has the English slide. Also, full comments from Iwata about Wii U’s lineup:

These are the already announced Wii U titles that will be released in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2016, and there are also unannounced titles that are not listed here. Among these titles, there are games that actively utilize the Wii U GamePad, including several we showed at E3 last year that are considered part of the Wii U GamePad utilization project led by Mr. Miyamoto.
In the case of other such titles as “Mario Maker (temp.),” I believe that the type of gameplay that lets consumers use the GamePad to take advantage of their creativity to create UGC (user-generated content) for everyone to enjoy offers tremendous possibilities, and I also believe that the nature of the gameplay that encourages parents and children to play together has great potential as well.

Nintendo included a slide in its latest financial results briefing that provides a look at upcoming titles for Wii U. Take a look at the image above.

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Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 2 Comments

Wii U is maintaining momentum even after the start of the new year, especially in the overseas markets.

This is the year-on-year Wii U hardware/software sell-through ratio for the October-December period we showed at the Third Quarter Financial Results Briefing.

The momentum gained during the year-end continued into the fourth quarter.

As the ratios show, software in all regions and hardware in the overseas markets exceeded those of the previous year.

Our analysis is that this increase is not so much owed to the release of new titles but instead to the release of two classic multiplayer titles for Nintendo’s home console last year.

Specifically, I believe it was significant that “Mario Kart 8” and “Super Smash Bros. for Wii U” were released in the same year and that we have been able to maintain users’ active use of these titles months after their respective releases.

We are trying to motivate our consumers to continually play the games that they have purchased and are placing emphasis on the ability to keep a high replay value even after time has passed since their release by adding new functionalities via software updates or by digitally offering new add-on content such as new characters and new courses. This is an important effort for maintaining the performance and momentum of evergreen titles and further extending their lifespan.

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More: sales, top

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 0 comments

In the video game platform business, although people tend to focus on the huge spike of sales immediately after a game release, looking back at the history of Nintendo’s handheld game systems, not only does hardware sell well with new titles, but our systems also tend to sell well paired with big titles that have become evergreen.

This tendency is strongest in the overseas markets, and we will aim to expand our hardware by promoting new titles as well as retaining the energy of our abundant evergreen titles (which are not new on the market but maintain consistent sales.)

These are the cumulative sales figures of some of the Nintendo 3DS software sold so far. Although “Mario Kart 7” was released in 2011, “New Super Mario Bros. 2” and “Animal Crossing: New Leaf” were in 2012 and “Pokémon X” and “Pokémon Y” were released in 2013, each of these titles sold more than 1 million units in the subject fiscal year. In the overseas markets especially, many titles tend to become evergreen and sell consistently even long after their releases.

“Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS” was released in fall last year and sold 6.75 million copies by the end of the subject fiscal year. “Tomodachi Life” was released in Japan in November 2013 and in the subject fiscal year overseas, and it sold particularly well in Europe with the global cumulative shipment reaching 4.15 million units. Also, from their release in November last year to the end of the subject fiscal term, 9.94 million units of “Pokémon Omega Ruby” and “Pokémon Alpha Sapphire” were shipped. While on one hand, we will keep these titles evergreen and on another we will add new quality software, we aim to further expand the sales of Nintendo 3DS hardware by increasing its broad software lineup.

In addition, as I mentioned in my presentation for the last Financial Results Briefing, we are working on further promoting multiplayer gameplay using the local communication function of Nintendo 3DS in the overseas markets as well. This shall play a major role for franchises such as “Mario Kart,” “Animal Crossing,” “Super Smash Bros.,” “Pokémon,” “Monster Hunter” and for the “YO-KAI WATCH” game, which will be released in overseas markets in the future.

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More: sales, Satoru Iwata, top

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 9 Comments

This is the graph displayed in the last Financial Results Briefing, which shows the percentage of change found in the sell-through data of Nintendo 3DS hardware and software in each market for the third quarter of this fiscal year compared to the corresponding term of the previous year.

As you can see, except for Japan, where New Nintendo 3DS contributed to the full quarter, the hardware sales fell far short of the previous year in the U.S. and Europe where the new models were not available during the third quarter and in Australia, where they were launched in late November.

In the fourth quarter, you can see the launch of New Nintendo 3DS in the overseas markets boosted the sales of both hardware and software from one year prior and brought momentum to the platform once again.

On the other hand, the Japanese market was in between big titles and this resulted in a different outcome after having enjoyed five double-million sellers in the latter six months of the year 2014.

In the Japanese market, the cumulative sales of Nintendo 3DS hardware since its launch are about to reach 19 million units. Regarding the Nintendo 3DS software market, the situation remains promising not only because there have been numerous major-hit titles released since the latter half of last year, but also because we have high hopes for the many titles that are planned to be released this year by both Nintendo and other game software developers. On the other hand, regarding the Nintendo 3DS hardware, four years since its release, we are seeing a certain level of positive results by the release of New Nintendo 3DS, but we still have not been able to break free from the period beyond the popularization of the Nintendo 3DS in which the performance leveled off. I believe that the key to revitalizing the Nintendo 3DS business in Japan is by intensifying its appeal to even more generations of female consumers.

This year, we are planning to release titles that offer high potential to appeal to female consumers, and we would like to further strengthen our approach to reach a female audience covering wider generations.

Meanwhile, in the overseas markets, the Nintendo 3DS hardware has not spread to a level where it has reached its market potential. In other words, there is plenty of room for growth.

Since the release of New Nintendo 3DS in February this year, especially for the large-screened New Nintendo 3DS XL, stock in stores has continued to run low in the U.S. and Europe, which of course is a sign that the game platform has momentum.

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More: sales, Satoru Iwata, top

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U eShop | 0 comments

The newest Paper Monsters Recut update is now live in North America. Once applied, players should find a much smoother experience thanks to the elimination of certain bugs.

Developer Mobot Studios passed along the update news on Twitter:

Paper Monsters Recut’s update previously came to Europe in March.

Thanks to Cameron for the tip.

More: indie, Mobot Studios, Paper Monsters Recut