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After a rough couple of months, Nintendo sees a nice surge in sales for the Wii U, Nintendo 3DS, and software.
The last quarter of 2013 hasn’t been easy for Nintendo. From waning sales to media outlets declaring Nintendo is doomed at every given instance, they’ve been put through the ringer. However, the company is currently experiencing a reprieve. The 3DS has recently sold over 10 million units in North America, a milestone for the handheld giant which is sitting pretty at 32 million+ sales, already surpassing the Nintendo 64‘s lifetime sales. In addition, improvements on the software front surface, with The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds and Super Mario 3D World already closing in on 1 million units. Performance in the market has always been a slow burn for Nintendo; they are a business that relies more so on long-term software sales than launch numbers.
Many were quick to declare Super Mario 3D World “a flop” due to the lackluster launch sales, but it’s important to keep in mind other titles that have sold well in the past, only over time. For example, Fire Emblem Awakening reached its one million mark this fall. Their game sales tend to have a different pattern to them than conventional market behavior. On the console front, Wii U sales rose 340 percent last month, selling 220,000+ units. Several factors play into this, such as the holiday rush and some new software appearing on the platform. While new software on the way this February and spring will no doubt mean an increase in sales, there’s no telling how well it will fair in comparison to the holidays. The more games there are, the more attractive the platform will look, but at the same time, 3D Mario is known to be very popular, and it is arguably Wii U’s killer app. It’s hard to accurately predict what exactly will happen, as the video game market is not as cut and dry as analysts seem to make it out to be.
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