prayformojo said:
retroking1981 said:
Seeing this weeks numbers (20th Sept 14) has really opened my eyes to not only the Wii U's problem but the 3DS and Nintendo's as a whole.
Since when did North America become such a weak market for Nintendo?
Nintendo HW has always sold best in NA, a streak that looks set to be broken with the 3DS. 16.23m in Japan against 13.97m in NA.
Things look even worse when you look at the 3DS against past platforms. It'll be hitting its 4th anniversary after this Christmas and surely has seen its peak year already.
At the current 13.97m what realistic chance has it got of matching N64 (20.11m) or PSP (21.41m) let alone their past handheld efforts which all had sales north of 40m.
Then there's the poor Wii U. Whilst already (and likely to stay) ahead in North America compared to Europe and Japan the outlook it still bleak. It was outsold this week compared to Europe.
I can't see that as being anything but a total disaster for NoA.
We're comparing the European market which Nintendo have never been no.1 in (PS3 will overtake the Wii) and is commonly called Sonyland for good reason BEATING NA numbers, the biggest video game market in the world.
Even a dying Japanese market which NA sales eclipsed during its peak years in the 80s/90s is selling almost 50% of NA numbers.
15k against 60k+ for both XOne and PS4 shows exactly where Nintendo's biggest problem lies, imo.
They've completely lost relevance in the most important market in the world.
So what happened to Nintendo being a force in NA? Can they ever be again?
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Clearly, you don't remember the Gamecube era. Nintendo's been down this road before. They'll be fine. They don't NEED to be #1 in order to continue making the games we all love to play. As long as they're making money, we should all take a deep breath and relax.
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A lot of people apparently don't remember the GBA-GCN era. The GBA was a monster seller in North America, in fact I think it was the fastest selling game platform in North America ever, faster than the PS2, PS4, DS, or Wii.
The GameCube sold ok in North America too, North America was its strongest market, Japan and Europe is the reason GCN didn't hit 30+ million.
Iwata and his board IMO don't understand the North American market and never really have. They got lucky by cashing in on a few casual fads before Apple/Android/MS Kinect moved in on the market to provide competetion. Even on the Wii, after Wii Fit in 2008, they weren't really able to find another casual fad to latch onto. Wii Music failed to be a big hit, Nintendo Land wasn't, Rhythm Heaven wasn't, Tomodachi Collection has done OK in North America but its no Brain Training/Nintendogs.
