Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Mobile, News | 15 Comments

Miitomo may have only just launched about a month ago, but the app has managed to secure 10 million users since then. Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima said during the company’s investors briefing last week that this shows “it has achieved the level we had planned.”

Going forward with Nintendo’s mobile apps, Kimishima noted that they’ll be looking to quickly act upon feedback received to make them better. This is something that will be happening with Miitomo, and by doing so, the amount of daily active users can increase.

Here’s the full question/answer from an investor and Kimishima about mobile:

I’m sure that there were many things with Miitomo that Nintendo expected, as well as many that were unexpected, that provided learning experiences. I would like to hear as much as possible about what was learned from the experience. Nintendo’s value comes from its strong IP, and using that IP comes with the risk that if the IP is not successful, its value will decrease. In that sense, Miitomo and future titles need to get results in the smart device application market. It may still be too early to generalize, but I would like to know how the response to Miitomo has been in comparison with your expectations.

I believe that Miitomo reaching 10 million unique users in the short time since its release shows that it has achieved the level we had planned. At the same time, this system lets us hear the consumers’ opinions. I believe this business requires us to continue to update to respond to these opinions in various ways, so we knew from the beginning that we would not be able to satisfy everyone right away. We believe that it is important to continue to revitalize the applications by quickly implementing feedback from consumers. Only one month has passed since distribution began. Our goals are to act on the feedback we received during this period quickly and increase the amount of consumers who are playing daily.

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Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 79 Comments

Last week, we posted a number of comments from Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima from the company’s investors briefing mainly pertaining to NX. This included questions/answers about the price, the need to have a steady stream of games, and more.

Nintendo has now put up a translation of the investor briefing Q&A. You can find a roundup of the official comments below.

For the fiscal year ending March 2017, projected sales of Wii U hardware is set quite low, due in part to the timing of the launch of NX (development code name for the new-concept dedicated video game system currently under development). During this planning stage, what was the thinking about the effect on the Nintendo 3DS system?

By setting the projected sales of Wii U hardware for the fiscal year to 800,000 units, we do not see that there would be any negative effect on the Nintendo 3DS business. We have major titles for Nintendo 3DS for the fiscal year ending March 2017, as I mentioned in the presentation, and there is a solid lineup of titles. That should greatly contribute to the sale of both the hardware and the software. The positive aspect of lowering the projected sales of Wii U hardware to 800,000 units is that it allows us to focus on the Nintendo 3DS system.

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Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Mobile, News | 26 Comments

Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima was asked about Nintendo’s commitment to mobile at the Big N’s latest investors briefing last week. Kimishima reiterated that the company would like “to grow smart device gaming as one of the pillars of Nintendo’s revenue stream.” Additionally, Shigeru Miyamoto is also involved as “he is having specific talks with developers of games for smart devices on what would be desirable overall.”

The full question and answer is as follows:

I would like to reconfirm how serious your company is about your initiative on games for smart devices. How much management resources are you intending to shift over to this business in the future? The company has extremely able, world-class creators, and I think they could create hits in games for smart devices. In that sense, I think the best scenario would be to have the legendary Mr. Miyamoto take up the challenge of games for smart devices, and have him create something that would make people think, “This is truly Nintendo’s smart device game.” Mr. Kimishima, what do you think about that?

If people are “not sure about how serious we are” about smart devices, it means that information issued from our company is not accurately conveyed, and I have to reflect on that. As we have reiterated, we want to grow smart device gaming as one of the pillars of Nintendo’s revenue stream. As for shifting managerial resources in that direction, we have very capable developers who are working on development of games for smart devices, as you already know. Of course, Mr. Miyamoto, our Creative Fellow, is also supporting the business for smart devices from a company-wide perspective. To explain the level of engagement of Mr. Miyamoto, he is having specific talks with developers of games for smart devices on what would be desirable overall. In that sense, what you see from the outside may be markedly different from what we see on the inside. As I have said, we want this to be one of the pillars of our business. Our level of engagement has not lessened, so I hope you will understand that.

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Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Mobile, News | 6 Comments

Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima was hesitant to share stats pertaining to Miitomo during the company’s investors briefing last week. However, he did reveal that the app had “a slightly higher ratio of women at the beginning,” and noted that the revenue impact “is negligible for the fiscal year ended 2016” since it’s just starting out. He expects that in-app revenue is in line with expectations.

Kimishima went on to talk about in-app purchases on mobile as well as Nintendo Accounts (plus My Nintendo). You can read up on his full comments below.

I heard that there are over 10 million Miitomo users worldwide. I would like to know the attributes of those users, the number of DAUs (daily active users), as well as how much Miitomo is contributing to earnings. Have there already been positive effects on existing business from its connection with the Nintendo Account system? For applications to be released in the future, are you going to increase the game element and seek to increase revenue from in-app purchases?

The over 10 million users are very balanced in terms of gender. There was a slightly higher ratio of women at the beginning. We will not be releasing statistical data such as DAU numbers. As you are well aware, all kinds of ranking information exists for smart device applications, so I will refer you to those. If you look at them and estimate the in-app purchase revenue, I think it will not be too far off from reality.

The revenue impact of Miitomo is negligible for the fiscal year ended 2016, as we have only just started. The Miitomo download numbers are growing right now, so I think the in-app purchase revenue is also growing more or less as expected.

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Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Mobile, News | 30 Comments

Nintendo made a number of announcements last week, including the news about bringing Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem to mobile. During the company’s briefing for investors, president Tatsumi Kimishima was asked about the move as well as what lies ahead for smart device plans. For the latter part of his answer, he noted that Nintendo is “not limiting the IP for the titles that will follow these two.”

Kimishima responded with the following:

We chose Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem as titles to follow Miitomo from the viewpoint of increasing the diverse types of consumers interested in Nintendo, and widening opportunities for game play. The Animal Crossing series has been played by a wide range of consumers including children and women. I think there is a good chance that those consumers would enjoy this. As for Fire Emblem, it is not so much the width of the audience as the existence of die-hard fans who have stuck to the series for a long time. We selected two titles of different categories and IP to reach as many consumers as possible. We are not limiting the IP for the titles that will follow these two. We will continue to prepare titles using IP that many consumers are familiar with.

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Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Switch | 166 Comments

Nintendo just put up the Q&A portion of its latest investors briefing. An official translation will likely be posted next week, but Cheesemeister has provided a summary for some of the topics discussed.

In what’s been translated, Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima touched on how Nintendo will be focusing on 3DS in the near-term. For NX, he touched on the need to build up NX’s software lineup, profitability (what that means for pricing), and how Nintendo will be missing the holiday season. Head past the break for the translation.

Q: It seems the great reduction in the Wii U hardware sales forecast is influenced by the timing of the NX release, but how about 3DS?

A: This fiscal year, the 3DS has big titles as previously presented, and in sufficient quantity. Both hardware and software will make large contributions to sales. Also, while Wii U sales are forecast to drop to 800,000 units, the upside is that we can focus on the 3DS.

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Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 2 Comments

This information comes from Nintendo’s investors briefing as stated by president Tatsumi Kimishima…

Next, we will cover the amiibo business. Over the fiscal year ended March 2016, we shipped about 24.7 million amiibo figures and about 28.9 million amiibo cards, a huge increase over the prior fiscal year.

By providing a continued presence for Nintendo characters in stores, we believe the amiibo platform has created great benefits for all of Nintendo’s platforms.

These are the sell-through trends for Splatoon series amiibo in Japan.
Even after the start of the calendar year, the Splatoon series amiibo have continued to sell well, with sales approaching one million units in Japan alone.

This graph shows the total sell-through by quarter in the U.S. for several of the characters that were released with the initial launch of amiibo in November 2014.

Like software titles, some amiibo characters are also becoming evergreen, showing stable long-term sales with little seasonal fluctuation.

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Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Mobile, News | 78 Comments

Later this year, two core Nintendo franchises will be appearing on mobile: Fire Emblem and Animal Crossing. President Tatsumi Kimishima discussed the thinking behind having the two IPs on the likes of smartphones during an earnings conference earlier today.

He said:

“These two smartphone games will appeal to different user demographics. We chose two different genres to appeal to as many Nintendo fans as possible.”

Fire Emblem and Animal Crossing mobile apps will launch this fall. With the latter, Nintendo said it will be designed “so that it will be connected with the world of Animal Crossing for dedicated gaming systems.”

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Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch | 119 Comments

Nintendo finally provided an official update on NX today, but it probably wasn’t what many expected. Rather than launching by the end of the year, the new system will instead debut in March 2017.

Japanese paper Nikkei spoke with Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima, and asked why Nintendo won’t be launching NX in time for the holiday season. Kimishima responded by saying the company wanted to ensure that there were games to go along with the NX.

As far as what the system will offer, he wouldn’t divulge any specifics. Kimishima only said the following:

“At this current stage, I’m not able to say. However, it’s not merely the successor to the handheld 3DS or stationary console Wii U. This will be hardware that’s been made with a new way of thinking. I’d like to announce more particulars regarding its specs and how it works another time this year.”

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Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 8 Comments

Tatsumi Kimishima, Nintendo’s new global president, is celebrating his birthday today. Kimishima was born on April 21, 1950, making him 66. We hope he’s had a lovely birthday!

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