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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Why Does 3DS Not Sell Too Well In The West?

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Mandalore76 on 28 June 2012
TruckOSaurus said:
Mandalore76 said:
NintendoPie said:

We all know that 3DS is doing phenomanal in Japan. It's even broken a few records for it's sales. But why does America not give the 3DS this love? Why aren't the sales as good as Japan's

Is it the Games, the Design, the Marketing, or even the Fact that it is made by Nintendo?

What and why do you think the 3DS is doing so well in Japan but not America?



I think the Title of the post is misleading.  The 3DS has sold about 6.3 million units in Japan compared to 5.7 million units in the US.  You are talking about the difference of about half a million units after only 1 year on the market.  I wouldn't call owning 89% of this generation's handheld gaming market in the US as not doing too well.  A year out from release, I think the 3DS is doing just fine.  And, it's not solely because of the price cut that it is selling well this year.  Clearly, more games that people wanted started to become available late last year.   If you could save a flopping device simply by dropping the price, the Nokia N-Gage would still be on the market. 

There's over 311 million people in the US and about 127 million people in Japan. Yet weekly Japanese 3DS sales are constantly and considerably higher than in the US which means the console is a much much bigger success over there.

Again, the point is this, one year out from launch, here are the sales by the big 3 regions:  North America 5.6 mil, Europe 4.6 mil, Japan 6.3 mil.  That is an extremely even spread which I think should be viewed as the system selling well in ALL regions as opposed to selling well in Japan and poorly in North America and Europe.  I would rather see the system selling equally well in all regions as opposed to selling 6 million units in North America and only 2 million in Japan just for the sake of saying sales in the West should be higher because of population size.  But, I do see what you are saying about Japan's weekly #'s being about 20,000 higher than the US.  And, you don't have to look too far to find out where that difference is currently coming from.  A quick glance at the Weekly Hardware Chart for week ending June 16th will show you that a remarkable 22,000 units are still being purchased in a given week in North America.  If you look at that exact same week in Japan, less than 1,000 DS units were sold.  That's your weekly gap right there.  When the 3DS released, Nintendo announced a commitment to continued support for the DS even while they are phasing it out.  Clearly, consumers in the US are opting to purchase the DS until that support on Nintendo's end ceases completely.  Once the DS is phazed out of the market, the consumers that the DS has continued to attract will jump over to the 3DS and you will see the North America/Japan #'s match-up better.  The backwards compatibility of the 3DS will attract potential would-be DS owners, and current DS owners ready to upgrade to the new handheld.  But, I still stand behind my belief that the system is doing well, and it's sales will only continue to grow.



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MDMAlliance on 28 June 2012
Mandalore76 said:

Again, the point is this, one year out from launch, here are the sales by the big 3 regions:  North America 5.6 mil, Europe 4.6 mil, Japan 6.3 mil.  That is an extremely even spread which I think should be viewed as the system selling well in ALL regions as opposed to selling well in Japan and poorly in North America and Europe.  I would rather see the system selling equally well in all regions as opposed to selling 6 million units in North America and only 2 million in Japan just for the sake of saying sales in the West should be higher because of population size.  But, I do see what you are saying about Japan's weekly #'s being about 20,000 higher than the US.  And, you don't have to look too far to find out where that difference is currently coming from.  A quick glance at the Weekly Hardware Chart for week ending June 16th will show you that a remarkable 22,000 units are still being purchased in a given week in North America.  If you look at that exact same week in Japan, less than 1,000 DS units were sold.  That's your weekly gap right there.  When the 3DS released, Nintendo announced a commitment to continued support for the DS even while they are phasing it out.  Clearly, consumers in the US are opting to purchase the DS until that support on Nintendo's end ceases completely.  Once the DS is phazed out of the market, the consumers that the DS has continued to attract will jump over to the 3DS and you will see the North America/Japan #'s match-up better.  The backwards compatibility of the 3DS will attract potential would-be DS owners, and current DS owners ready to upgrade to the new handheld.  But, I still stand behind my belief that the system is doing well, and it's sales will only continue to grow.


I can see what you mean, but I  think it would be difficult to predict how the North American sales will go once the DS phazes out.  I also wonder what it would mean about the global sales once the DS is out of the market.  



Cobretti2 on 28 June 2012
F0X said:
Needs Pokemon.

this is why black and white v2 was a mistake to release on DS.

They should have made it for 3DS, or a new pokemon gaame titles all together.

Now they have to wait enough time for people to get sick of V2 games.



 

 

TruckOSaurus on 28 June 2012
S.Peelman said:
TruckOSaurus said:
(..)

There's over 311 million people in the US and about 127 million people in Japan. Yet weekly Japanese 3DS sales are constantly and considerably higher than in the US which means the console is a much much bigger success over there.

Raw numbers don't say much on their own. There are over 700 million people in Europe, yet it's still the smallest market for videogames (of the traditional three) and always has been.

That's where the data from the DS sales comes handy. While handhelds are more popular in Japan (a greater percentage of the Japanese population owns a DS than in NA), NA is still the bigger market for handhelds thanks to a much bigger pool of potential buyers. Which is why there's 55 million units sold in North America against 33 million in Japan.

So all things considered it is still true to say that 3DS is a greater success in Japan than in NA. I myself wouldn't go as far as saying it's selling "not too well" like OP suggests but I'd say it's selling great in Japan compared to just okay in North America.



Signature goes here!

ryuzaki57 on 28 June 2012

Not enough games, not enough variety in the library (what? More mario you said?) and...

THIS!



 

Blog -> https://ryuz4ki57inenglish.wordpress.com/

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oniyide on 28 June 2012
davidd_err18 said:

All of them Dead Space, Mass Effect, NBA Jam and Battlefield are on the iOS platform xD

if this games were released on the 3DS (obviously with the better controls of the 3DS and better prodiction values) just imagine the possibilities!

and how well do those games do sales wise?? screw that, how well will they play?? Cause some of them play like utter crap and if you think the 3DS fans are just going to settle for crappy versions of the regular games, then you need to play attention to the sales of some of those games like...COD on DS



oniyide on 28 June 2012
Jumpin said:
oniyide said:
Jumpin said:
MGS, Kid Icarus, Resident Evil are all fine series; but none of those are huge franchises - sales of games in those franchises are always limited to 3-5 million lifetime, tops; much fewer on handheld even. There hasn't been a huge franchise game released since Mario Kart that can do over 15 million lifetime. Of course, if there were like 20-30 RE/MGS caliber games, it might make up for it.

I think New Super Mario Brothers 2 should help out a lot


there are few games that will do 15 mil on any system. Surely, you cant expect 3DS to churn out one of those every other month. But looking at the sale for those games you mentioned i doubt they will even reach sales that the other games in the same series usually enjoy

The 6 big franchises that can are:
Super Mario Bros.
Mario Kart
Pokemon
Call of Duty
Wii Fit
Wii Sports
GTA used to be one


Only three of those are applicable for handhelds, although, the new 3D Mario Land title's success has been encouraging; it's not really a separate franchise, but it is a sub-franchise in a different sub-genre. 3D Mario games are picking up in popularity; and level based platformers are an excellent fit on handheld systems due to the short play sessions.

thats my point they are still far and few inbetween. and 3 of them cant even be used. GTA still does 15mil, just in combined sales. but it wouldnt do that well on portables, no matter how good it is, but IMHO having played the PSP ones i still think its worthwhile to be on one or both of the handhelds. COD can be applied it just needs a system that is powerful enough, with controls that dont suck. Which is what the DS games problem was IMHO. ANd you dont have to tell me about 3D LAnd, played it, beat it, loved it. Ninty nailed whatever they were trying to do their.



oniyide on 28 June 2012
milkyjoe said:
oniyide said:
davidd_err18 said:
GAMES!... thats the reason. The price is right, power and marketing are standard for a succesful handheld, but it need more games from:

3rd Party Western Publishers are not supporting the platform like the Eastern guys- EA, Bioware, Activision, Epic, Bethesda, Rockstar, Take-Two, THQ and Ubisoft. All of this company are not suporting the 3DS platform with their big core franchises neither they are releasing a lot quality games (or in some cases they are not supporting the console at all!)

Just look at EA, one of the biggest publishers in the World, they have only released subpar rushed dumbed down launch titles (a Sims game, Fifa 12 and Madden 3DS) and Need for speed: The Run; where is Dead Space? where is NBA Jam? where is Mass Effect? where are Battlefield or Crisis or a Medal of Honor game?

Now compare that to a japanese developer like Capcom, with Big games like Monser Hunter TriG (and the soon to be released Monster Hunter 4), Resident Evil Revelations and Mercenaries, Super Street Figher 3DS, Project X Zone, Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney, Ace attorney 5, Ex Troopers. Now lets do this with Square Enix, we have games like Kingdom Hearts 3D, Dragon Quest Monsters: TW 3D, Bravely Default: Flying Fairy, Heroes of Ruin, Theathrytm Final Fantasy. This developers actually tried to make quality games and they are supporting big time!

some of those games you mentioned would not be that popular on a portable console. Dead Space?? not gonna happen. Nba Jam?? that series aint that popular no more. Mass Effect, there is one on Iphone/pad, but im not sure how good it is. Battlefield will never be on a portable, not in the way we know, that is such a silly game to suggest for 3DS. 

No oniyide, as I was told the other day, we should expect games like Battlefield on handhelds now. If it doesn't make it to the 3DS it's apparently because of the lack of a default second stick, and not because they've never made a Battlefield handheld game before, thus there being nothing to suggest they ever would anyway...

When i say BF i mean BF, that game has huge maps its one of the things that set it apart from the other FPSs. I doubt that any of the two handhelds could handle, yes they can make and game and call it BF but it really wouldnt be BF, now your CODs, MOHs, Resistances, etc. those are all up for grabs as we have seen and are seeing, (at least in terms of Vita)



teigaga on 28 June 2012
MDMAlliance said:
One reason I think is that Japan likes Nintendo more than America does. Another thing is that I think here in North America, people are more likely to blindly support the system with better specs and write off the other system as a failure, without even considering the systems capabilities. This means "PS Vita is better in every way, 3DS sucks because the PS Vita is so much stronger and the PSP is probably stronger too." I've seen it everywhere and lots of people in person think that, too. This group may be relatively small in comparison to the whole community of gamers, but it definitely seems more prevalent here.

I also agree that localization of games should occur more often, as well as globalized releases that it seems Luigi's Mansion will be getting. I think those promote sales, as well as special bundles and designs for the 3DS.


Vita does have more potential as a gaming system :)



teigaga on 28 June 2012

The main problem is software, but the system is selling well and close to its potential. Currently I think the 3DS is selling mainly to children and really core gamers but they're missing out on the adult casual market that allowed the DS to sell is huge numbers. The casual adult market has been taken by smart phones, at such an early stage in its life its the yet to have enough/varied games to convince the mass market core audience. In essence its doing exactly as it should do in the current market.