Nintendo of Japan hosted a special investor’s presentation today to talk about sales numbers, changes to their account system, and details of their upcoming mobile gaming service.
Here’s a summary of what was discussed.
On sales:
- Nintendo believes that the outlook for existing consoles does not look promising. “Tough times ahead for Nintendo’s Wii U console and 3DS handheld device because rivals are already moving on to the next-generation technology, such as virtual reality,” says Kamada, of Tokai Tokyo Securities.
- Nintendo CEO Tatsumi Kimishima said that more as-yet unannounced titles will be 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 and Nintendo will be pushing games to win more women users this Christmas.
- Super Mario Maker hit 1 million sales in just three weeks.
- amiibo figurine shipments worldwide hit 21.1 million at end-September, up from 14.7 million at end-June.
- Nintendo can’t keep up with demand for “Animal Crossing” amiibo cards. Mr. Kimishima apologizes, says will start sales of a new round of shipments today.
Amiibo sales regional breakdown. Blue is north america. Red Japan. Green Europe. Zelda most popular in US, Europe.
On accounts and cloud services:
- A new membership service has been announced, tol be called a “Nintendo Account”. This will connect hardware users with PC and smart device users.
- Nintendo will use a cloud-based data service to transfer game data between mobile games and console games.
On smartphones:
- Nintendo’s first foray into the smartphone market will now occur in March 2016, instead of the previously announced end-2015 date.
- Nintendo plan to release five smartphone apps by March 2017.
- Despite the delay, the first game was announced, to be titled “Miitomo”. Users will design their own avatars (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.
- Shigeru Miyamoto said that DeNA will be operating the smartphone games, while Nintendo will focus on ways to guide users to its hardware.
- Nintendo’s goal is to use smart devices to increase the value of its IP, which will help sales of both software and hardware.
We’ll delve into a deeper discussion on these topics tomorrow during our next Koopa Kast, so stay tuned. In the meantime, let us know your thoughts on all the latest news from Japan in the comments section below.
Source: Wall Street Journal
