Iwata on Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire pre-orders
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata discussed strong pre-orders sales for Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire during the company’s latest financial results briefing yesterday. Read on below for his comments.
In addition, we have had very strong pre-orders for “Pokémon Omega Ruby” and “Pokémon Alpha Sapphire” to be released around the world in November. As you can see from the slide comparing them with those for “Pokémon X” and “Pokémon Y” released last year, the momentum of pre-orders has been robust regardless of the region.
Many people in the industry would anticipate that however dramatically “Pokémon Omega Ruby” and “Pokémon Alpha Sapphire” have been remade, their sales would be lower than those of “Pokémon X” and “Pokémon Y,” which were completely new titles, but the trend of pre-orders has gone against their expectations so far. In particular, they have been surpassed by far in Europe.
Please let me show you an interesting hypothesis explaining the reason for such strong pre-orders: Those who have enjoyed the “Super Smash Bros.” series and those who were impressed with “Pokémon Ruby” and “Pokémon Sapphire” as the first “Pokémon” title are of the same generation and overlap substantially with each other. We call it the “Hypothesis of the same-generation of “Super Smash Bros.” and “Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire.”
Those who were elementary school students when “Super Smash Bros. Melee,” and “Pokémon Ruby” and “Pokémon Sapphire” were released have grown up and they are now 18 to 25 years old. Our research in each part of the world commonly indicates that consumers between the age of 18 and 25 represent a large percentage of those who purchased “Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS” in the release period. It is approximately 30 percent in Japan, which is twice the overall average of Nintendo 3DS software, and has even reached 50 percent in the U.S. and Europe. This great momentum for the game in the initial stage was supported by this generation.
Thanks to “Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS,” consumers of this generation pay more attention to Nintendo 3DS and are likely to remember enjoying “Pokémon Ruby” and “Pokémon Sapphire.” We think this is why the pre-orders for “Pokémon Omega Ruby” and “Pokémon Alpha Sapphire” have been strong. They are now old enough to pay for their own expenses. They can afford to buy Nintendo 3DS to enjoy both “Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS” and “Pokémon Omega Ruby” and “Pokémon Alpha Sapphire” if they choose, and they might encourage their friends to play it with them too. We therefore see it important to stimulate their latent demand in the year-end sales season.
Taking into account both the trend of pre-orders and the same-generation hypothesis, we anticipate that “Pokémon Omega Ruby” and “Pokémon Alpha Sapphire” to be released next month will have more sales potential than just another remade game in the industry.
