Nintendo second quarter financial results briefing live blog

Nintendo is just about to kick off its Second Quarter Financial Results Briefing (and Corporate Management Policy Briefing). The event should begin at roughly 9 PM ET / 6 PM PT – 30 minutes from now.

We’ll be relaying information collected by the Wall Street Journal as well as any other sources that pop up. You can keep track of the updates below.

Live blog

– Beginning now (9:04 PM ET)
– Kimishima, Miyamoto, and more are there
– Kimishima beginning his presentation

– CEO Tatsumi Kimishima says there are more titles–unannounced–coming this year to promote both Wii U and 3DS during the year-end holiday season

– 70% of “Animal Crossing” fans in Japan are women
– Nintendo will be pushing more games to win more women users this Christmas
– “Super Mario Maker” hit 1 million sales in just three weeks
– Mr. Kimishima notes that like “Splatoon”, a single hit game can change the course of hardware sales

– 400,000 Yarn Yoshi amiibo sold
– amiibo shipments worldwide hit 21.1 million at end-September
– This is up from 14.7 million at end-June

– Nintendo can’t keep up with demand for “Animal Crossing” amiibo cards
– Kimishima apologizes, says will start sales of a new round of shipments today
– 8.6 million amiibo cards sold

– Nintendo’s new membership service will be called “Nintendo Account”
– This will connect hardware users, as well as PC and smart device users
– Nintendo to use a cloud-based data service to transfer game data between mobile games and console games
– Launch date of Nintendo’s smartphone games has been delayed
– Launch will be March 2016, not year-end
– Nintendo eyes global launch, depending on the game
– The new smartphone game will be “Miitomo”
– Free-to-play
– Attractive add-ons that people can pay for
– Other games will be pay-to-download
– Miitomo is the first of five smartphone apps that Nintendo plans to release by March 2017
– In the new Miitomo game, users will design their own avatars, or “Miis,” to communicate with other users
– Executive Shinya Takahashi says that Nintendo will find ways to encourage people who are hesitant to talk to share things about themselves
– Senior Managing Director Shigeru Miyamoto says DeNA will help operate the smartphone games, while Nintendo will focus on ways to guide users to its hardware
– The five smartphone apps won’t soon comprise half of sales
– Nintendo’s goal is to use smart devices to increase the value of its IP, which will help sales of both software and hardware
– On the reason for the delay of the smartphone app, Mr. Kimishima says, is the need for more lead time to fully promote and explain Miitomo
– The company is busy promoting other titles in the pipeline right now,
– It will start promoting Miitomo after the year-end holiday season
– Says this will have little impact on earnings
– Curious about how the DeNA and Nintendo partnership is going. Senior Managing Director Shigeru Miyamoto says DeNA will focus on operation of the games
– Which suggests game design is all Nintendo
– Mr. Miyamoto chimes in on NX
– “We are going to be far more aggressive in using our IP, and not just stop with licensing, as in the past. The first example is Amiibo. We want our IP to better reach more children, and smart devices is just one vehicle.”
– Coy on NX
– Mr. Kimishima: How can we make a completely different kind of game that nobody has ever thought of? It’s the same issue we have always faced.

END

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