Splatoon Global Testfire – round one now live
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 46 Comments
Splatoon Global Testfire is now open for business. This first round will last from 8 PM PT to 9 PM PT (11 PM ET to 12 AM ET).
Two more rounds of Splatoon Global Testfire will be going live over the next 12 hours or so. We’ll publish reminders as they begin.
3.4 million copies of Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate shipped worldwide, Capcom hopes to ship 2.5 million units of Monster Hunter Stories by March 31, 2016
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 6 Comments
Capcom has shared a bit more on its latest financial results.
The most notable piece of Nintendo news is that, as of March 31, 2015, the company has shipped 3.4 million copies of Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate worldwide. As previously mentioned, 1 million of the game’s shipments came from the west. Capcom originally projected a shipment of 3.9 million units, though they weren’t too far off.
Capcom’s new “title related to Monster Hunter” for 3DS, which is almost certainly Monster Hunter Stories, has a projection shipment now as well. Capcom is looking to have 2.5 million copies of the game out in the market by March 31, 2016.
Media Create sales (4/27 – 5/3) – Xenoblade Chronicles X debut
Posted on 9 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
More: charts, Japan, Media Create, sales, top
Yoshi’s Woolly World also works with non-Yoshi amiibo for design unlocks
Posted on 9 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!
More: Amiibo, top, Yoshi's Woolly World
A few more Iwata comments about Nintendo and Universal’s partnership for theme park attractions
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 11 Comments
Finally, please let me introduce you to one of our new efforts to maximize the value of the Nintendo IP.
Nintendo and Universal Parks & Resorts, which manages the “Universal Studios” theme parks, have reached a basic agreement about deployment of theme park attractions using Nintendo IP.
Based on this agreement, the two companies will jointly create attractive experiences by using the characters and the worlds of Nintendo games that people cannot enjoy anywhere else.
We will announce the details, including the specific period, which IP and how it will be used, at which park and the scale of the attractions, at some later date. However, today I just wanted to confirm with you that this sort of endeavor to actively use Nintendo IP has been progressing.
More: Satoru Iwata, top
Iwata on maximizing Nintendo’s IP, mobile plans
Posted on 9 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.
More: Satoru Iwata, top
Iwata on Nintendo’s download sales
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 3 Comments
These graphs show the download sales transitions in the recent three fiscal years. In the just-ended financial year, following on from the third quarter, the fourth-quarter download sales grew dramatically and the total download sales for the full fiscal year reached 31.3 billion yen. The digital download sales increase of about 30 percent compared to the previous fiscal year should be mainly attributable to such facts as the sales of the digital versions of both the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software increasing, especially in the overseas markets.
More: sales, Satoru Iwata, top
Iwata’s full comments on amiibo sales, shortages
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
We launched a new product category – amiibo – simultaneously with “Super Smash Bros for Wii U,” and the end of the subject fiscal term marked a total shipment of approximately 10.5 million units worldwide. As we had shipped approximately 5.7 million units by the end of calendar year 2014, it is safe to say that we achieved very strong growth even in the period immediately after the year-end sales season was over. Our assessment is that people purchase additional amiibo figures without any seasonal bias, as they are relatively more affordable than video game titles.
Our consumers have been inconvenienced by stock shortages on some of the figures in our amiibo lineup. We have increased production for amiibo figures that have sold out very quickly after launch, that are indispensable to play a certain game and for which we have received strong demand from retailers and consumers. However, we are very sorry that we can?t promise at what point we will likely be able to resolve the current situation because figures such as these require a considerable amount of time to produce, store shelf space is limited and it is difficult to precisely predict the exact amount of overall demand.
On the other hand, the number of software titles compatible with amiibo is increasing and consumers’ recognition and understanding for amiibo has improved significantly compared to the launch period, so we believe that we can predict further sales growth.
This pie graph shows the most recent regional shipment breakdown of amiibo. The U.S. and Canada, shown in red in the graph, have an overwhelmingly large 66 percent share, showing a tremendous presence overall.
In addition to figure offerings in the amiibo lineup this year, we are planning to release Yarn Yoshi amiibo and card-type amiibo. The first software title that is compatible with these amiibo cards is “Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer,” which for Nintendo 3DS. Simultaneously, we will also launch the “Nintendo 3DS NFC Reader/Writer” so that not only the owners of New Nintendo 3DS, which is equipped with NFC functionality, but also the owners of the original Nintendo 3DS systems can play with amiibo. The NFC Reader/Writer enables consumers to play with amiibo on the original Nintendo 3DS systems, and we believe we can expect further growth in amiibo sales with this significant increase in the number of compatible hardware systems.
More: Amiibo, Satoru Iwata, top
Iwata: Wii U maintaining momentum to begin 2015, importance of keeping evergreen games fresh
Posted on 9 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.
Iwata on 3DS software, evergreen sales, more
Posted on 9 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.
