Switch Close to Passing Sales of N64 (UPDATE: Now Passed!)

[The_Liquid_Laser]

RolStoppable said:

The_Liquid_Laser said:

I think you know that the 3DS caused Nintendo to post their first loss.  Also the annual sales of the Wii plummeted before the Wii U released.  Yes, they didn't have momentum going into the Wii U's launch.

Yes, the 3DS caused a loss, but you've been speaking about brand momentum. Consumers at large are oblivious to the financials of companies, because they don't care about that. As such, only unit sales of consoles and games matter for brand momentum, because the prevelance or lack thereof is what consumers perceive by way of their relatives and friends owning or not owning something.

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/nintendo-historical-shipment-data-1983-present.701305/

In the above link you can check the shipment numbers of Nintendo consoles going into the N64 era and the Wii U era, respectively. There were more Nintendo consoles sold leading up to the Wii U launch than there were leading up to the N64 launch.

Thank you for the data.  Let's analyze it.


The total sales of generation 4 and generation 7 and extremely different, so lets put the numbers in relative terms, in terms of market share.  How strong was the SNES's market share transistioning into generation 5 compared to the Wii's market share transitioning into generation 8?  

In all cases sales are listed in millions, and the denominator in Market Share comes from total console sales in each region.

Japan 
Gen 4 = 26.8m = 17.2 (SNES) + 3.6 (Gen) + 6 (TG16)
Gen 7 = 24.9m = 12.7 (Wii) + 10.5 (PS3) + 1.7 (X360)

annual sales	1 Year before successor	Market Share	Year of Successor	Market Share
SNES	1.78	6.64%	0.62	2.31%
Wii	0.86	3.45%	0.26	1.04%

North America
Gen 4 = 42.9m = 23.4 (SNES) + 17 (Gen) + 2.5 (TG16)
Gen 7 = 126.3m = 47.8 (Wii) + 29.4 (PS3) + 49.1 (X360)

annual sales	1 Year before successor	Market Share	Year of Successor	Market Share
SNES	2.86	6.67%	1.9	4.43%
Wii	4.53	3.59%	2.05	1.62%

Other 
Gen 4 = 19.6m = 8.6 (SNES) + 9 (Gen) + 2 (TG16)
Gen 7 = 121.4m = 39.4 (Wii) + 47 (PS3) + 35 (X360)

annual sales	1 Year before successor	Market Share	Year of Successor	Market Share
SNES	1.14	5.82%	0.78	3.98%
Wii	4.45	3.67%	1.68	1.38%

As you can see the SNES was performing much better than the Wii in terms of market share, both in the year before the next gen release and the year of the next gen release.  Nintendo was coming from an extremely strong position going into generation 5.  That translated into strong sales the first year or so for the N64.  Those sales withered away after the first year especially outside of North America. 

In generation 5, Nintendo went from a perfect record of always winning to getting outsold more than 3 to 1 by the PS1.  That is why I lump the N64 in with the Gamecube and Wii U.  It was a total disaster compared to their previous track record.