Here are Nintendo's total yearly shipments dating back to fiscal year ending March 1991. I chose that year to start as it was Nintendo's first full year of adopting their current fiscal year time frame (April 1-March 31).
FY90-19.82 million
FY91-25.25 million
FY92-24.35 million
FY93-19.04 million
FY94-10.39 million
FY95-10.12 million
FY96-16.58 million
FY97-22.92 million
FY98-23.09 million
FY99-24.45 million
FY00-22.91 million
FY01-26.15 million
FY02-22.70 million
FY03-23.06 million
FY04-24.58 million
FY05-22.25 million
FY06-34.16 million
FY07-50.64 million
FY08-57.36 million
FY09-47.69 million
FY10-36.22 million
FY11-30.06 million
FY12-23.95 million
FY13-16.31 million
FY14-12.57 million
Some things to note are that from FY90-05, Nintendo shipments were pretty consistent at around 20-25 million per year. FY93/94 were very low however at around 10 million, this was due to NES shipments drying up (it was still selling very well in the early 90s despite SNES on the market), Gameboy was beginning to show a notable decline and wouldn't show notable growth again until the late 90s when Pokémon & Gameboy Color released, and even SNES shipments were low in the west due to overshipping in the previous 2 years, Nintendo & retailers must have assumed SNES was going to replicate NES success in America.
The DS/Wii Era from FY06-11 was a massive growth from previous Nintendo generations with FY07-09 averaging over 50 million per year. The last few years have been tough for Nintendo with the DS/Wii Era ending and 3DS/Wii U underperforming. FY13/14 are the lowest shipments Nintendo has had since the mid-90s with FY15 possibly being the lowest since the 80s.
Going forward, I doubt we will ever see them replicate the success of DS/Wii, however I wonder if they can return to the 20-25 million baseline they held for the better part of 15 years. What are your thoughts on them returning to those level of sales next generation?
When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.
