Iwata on year-end 3DS sales, need to find out why it wasn’t at the top of children’s wish lists

The 3DS sold quite well during the last few months of 2013, but it didn’t hit Nintendo’s expectations. Pokemon X/Y provided a solid boost to the system, so Nintendo was “confident about the ultimate sales volume for the end of the year,” according to president Satoru Iwata. In the end though, “sales did not grow as expected.”

Iwata, speaking during the Q&A portion of Nintendo’s investor briefing, mentioned that the 3DS didn’t find itself at the top of children’s wish lists. Given how the 3DS costs somewhere in the range of $150 – $200 for most, and other products are competing for consumers’ dollars for the holiday season, “you need to make sure that your product is at the top of children’s wish lists”.

Keeping all of this in mind, 3DS did show high growth in France for the year-end period. Iwata says Nintendo is currently “examining what was different about France, and we would like to apply our findings to other regions.”

With regard to Nintendo 3DS, we felt that it was only a step away from achieving explosive sales in the overseas markets because releasing “Pokémon X” and “Pokémon Y” worldwide in October had greatly increased its hardware sales and stimulated more active engagement with the hardware. Considering that we had already experienced such strong sales in the early stages of the season, we were confident about the ultimate sales volume for the end of the year, too, but sales did not grow as expected. In order to sell a 150 dollar or 200 dollar product in the year-end sales season when there are other gifts available, you need to make sure that your product is at the top of children’s wish lists, and I analyze our results as our inability to place ourselves at the top of the list. However, I think it would be wrong to say that we never appeared on children’s wish lists in the first place. Rather, I think that we did not manage to place ourselves at the top of these lists, and what we need to examine is why we failed to do so. On the other hand, there were regions in which sales grew extremely well, too. For example, while sales did not grow well in the U.S. and did not increase enough in the UK or Germany during the year-end sales season, they grew extremely well in France. Right now, we are examining what was different about France, and we would like to apply our findings to other regions.