Obviously New Super Mario Bros Wii is a huge hit. It has sold almost 4 million copies within 3 weeks and easily one of the fastest selling titles from Nintendo ever. But how big can this game actually get before the end of the year. I'd like to throw out that 10 million before the end of the year isn't all that unlikely.
As of now in a total of 3.9 million copies have been sold with .94 in Japan, 1.92 in Americas, and 1.04 in Europe/Other. There is a total of 4 weeks left before the year comes to an end, one last week, then this week, and then the 2 weeks after. The last week of the year won't be as large as the first 3 considering the circumstances but will be akin to late November sales.
What gives evidence of continued strong Mario Bros Wii sales? Well first of all there is loads of evidence to suggest that there is continued strong demand in America. Nintendo stated that it has already passed 2 million in the US (commenting on NPD numbers last week) when December numbers were factored in. Now that is probably through the first week of December and our numbers tend to disagree with that but maybe they were talking up to the actual day or December 10th which would seem a little weird. Second our Japanese previous has shown that Mario might have held up a strong 2nd week in Japan (after selling out its first shipment according to trackers) with a good 400,000 and one of the best second weeks for a big seller in Japan. Third, NSMB Wii continues to top the charts in most European areas (even if at #3 this week in the UK). Finally, for America again there does appear to be an issue of keeping the game in stock and it is hard to imagine that Nintendo has brutally under shipped the game that much. Meaning that just suggests that retailers can't get them from the warehouses to the stores quick enough.
This leaves us 3 weeks of some huge sales. For last week, or this week's sales data, the game will probably sell more than a million. We are looking at about 400k in Japan, 400k in America, and 400k in Europe/Other. Although there is that downed sales in the UK I doubt that will cause too much discrepency in sales being down too much (was only 5%). But I'd say that is a very conservative estimate. American sales could be as high as 500k, Japan as high as 450k and Europe/Other as high as 450k. So will give a tolerance for week 1 of our final 4 weeks:
Week 1
Americas: 300k-500k
Japan: 350k-450k
Europe/Other: 350k-450k
Worldwide- 1000k-1400k
Total- 4.90m-5.30m
Week 1 Actual Sales
Americas- 477,153
Japan- 454,233
Europe/Other- 341,344
Worldwide- 1,272,730
Total- 5,176,524
Now when we thinka bout week 2, it is important that we see this as the biggest sales week for the industry. Week 3 will be strong with boxing day, but this week should be the largest. Galaxy was able to increase its sales quite well during this week. But there also is the idea that big selling titles at this time of the year wont' increase as much because they are already at its peak. I'll try to weigh that in with my variables while also taking on the idea that shortages are quite possible.
Week 2
Americas- 500k-700k
Japan- 200k-300k
Europe/Other- 500k-600k
Worldwide- 1200k-1600k
Total- 6.10m-6.90m
Week 2 Actual Sales
Americas- 590,549
Japan- 549,756
Europe/Other- 362,584
Worldwide- 1,502,889
Total- 6,679,413
Now this year Week 3 compared to other weeks that encompass Christmas is going to be a little different. It's going to include Boxing Day and the key big days before Christmas. Not to mention that Boxing Day will also be a Saturday. Given that you have a few more big days than the extra days being after Christmas and Boxing Day, this will be a generally smaller drop from the big week before it which is not the norm. Mario of course will follow similar trends. Once agian I'll try to think about the potential of sell outs and other potential factors such as a huge ramp up in Japan around this time.
Week 3
Americas- 400k-500k
Japan- 200k-400k
Europe/Other- 300k-400k
Worldwide- 900k-1300k
Total- 7.00m-8.20m
Finally week 4 will have huge drops in the Americas and Europe/Other while Japan should have some of its best sales. I'll try to reprsent that as accurately as possible:
Week 4
Americas- 150k-250k
Japan- 300k-400k
Europe/Other- 150k-250k
Worldwide- 600k-900k
Total- 7.60m-9.10m
Now obviously this doens't give us a lot of 9 million and a pretty large sales gap with the middle being 8.35 million units by the end of the year. But that's the question. This is just my opinion and there are certain areas I could be really close to or others I could be very far off of. But I do think this is a lot higher than most original sales estimates for this game by the end of the year and clearly that 10 million shipped by March 2010 seems very easy if this is even anywhere close.
Or I could be very far off on a lot of my numbers and maybe this will only sell about 6 million by the end of the year or another 2.1 million in these last 4 weeks. Really this is just what I've seen and where I think it could go with a farily large difference between minimum and maximum. So I'm just curious of what you guys think of this and whether or not these are likely, too high, too conservative, could shipments not be plentiful enough to suppor this etc. Does anyone think 10 million in sales is possibly by the end of the year? All I do know is Nintendo has a pretty big hit on their hands here.
