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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Nintendo`s business year ended. How did 3DS fare?

Edit: It seems that the 4 million 3DS number is shipped, at least according to this news piece: click me

As we all know, Nintendo estimated sales of 3DS to reach 4 million by March, 31st (end of business year) with 15 million games sold by then. Source.
Checking vgchartz data, 3DS stands at 2,060,141 units sold in hardware, with software reaching 2,043,978 games.

First of all, if the projection that i stated above was corrected, please let me know.

Did 3DS sell what was expected from the successor of DS, both hardware and software wise?

What do you guys think?



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MMh first of all do we know if those numbers were shipped or sold through? Because even with their 1.5 millions just in Japan, selling 2.5m at customers in the west in less than a week was just impossible, they broke records and still could even sell 3m...I think they were shipped, even if usually Nintendo numbers are not.



CURRENTLY PLAYING: Xenoblade (Wii), Super mario 3D land (3DS), Guild Wars (PC)

 

Edit: I searcher the internet a bit and it seems that Nintendo was talking about "shipped" numbers. Check the first post for the link.

If i`m not mistaken, Nintendo`s numbers are always sellthrough numbers. I also believe that it would be impossible to sell 2.5 million consoles in less than 10 days.

 



I think the hardware numbers are good, especially of you consider the effect the earthquake had on sales in Japan in particular.

The real problem from your data is the software. I can think of a few interpretations for this. The easiest one being there wasn't a killer app at launch, other than what came pre-installed on the system already. This was supposed to be Nintendogs from what I understand, but it's quite possible the title just hasn't come off as unique or different enough from the original to warrant a purchase. This may also be true for a lot of other of the 3DS' launch games such as Pilot Wings, SSFIV, Layton, Ridge Racer etc. I won't bother mentioning the games that were simply of poor quality as their sales would have been insignificant anyway...

Which leaves Steal Diver, which looks cool but definitely not a system seller.

The second reason is that DS games are still selling phenomenally well, especially outside Japan. Many customers have better products to spend their money on.

The third reason is technically the same as the second, but deserves a category of it's own: Pokemon, obviously.

even with all those, I can't understand the size of the gap between expected sales and actual sales...

Are these really Nintendo's projected numbers for 3DS software alone? Even if the 3DS sold all 4 million units by now, the attach rate needed to sell 15 mil. units of software is nearly 4:1 which is absurd for the launch of a new console...



Until you've played it, every game is a system seller!

the original trolls

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Wow they expected people to buy 4 games?



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gumby_trucker said:

I think the hardware numbers are good, especially of you consider the effect the earthquake had on sales in Japan in particular.

Fortunatly for Nintendo the earthquake might be their saviour when financial report comes from a huge drop of stock value.



PROUD MEMBER OF THE PSP RPG FAN CLUB

Boutros said:

Wow they expected people to buy 4 games?

According to the source the software numbers include bundled games... I'm not exactly sure how those are counted though..



Until you've played it, every game is a system seller!

the original trolls

Wii FC: 4810 9420 3131 7558
MHTri: name=BOo BoO/ID=BZBLEX/region=US

mini-games on consoles, cinematic games on handhelds, what's next? GameBoy IMAX?

Official Member of the Pikmin Fan Club

Boutros said:

Wow they expected people to buy 4 games?


i find it asmusing that less games have been sold than hardware xD



Yeah i know my spelling sucks but im dysgraphic so live with it :3    

---------------------------------------------------Bets--------------------------------------------------

Conegamer - I say that the PS3 will beat the DS next week in Japan  (for hardware sales) Forfeit is control over others avatar for 1 week.

Judging by Nintendo's own expectations... It looks like they hugely overestimated demand for both HW and SW.



                            

gumby_trucker said:

I think the hardware numbers are good, especially of you consider the effect the earthquake had on sales in Japan in particular.

The real problem from your data is the software. I can think of a few interpretations for this. The easiest one being there wasn't a killer app at launch, other than what came pre-installed on the system already. This was supposed to be Nintendogs from what I understand, but it's quite possible the title just hasn't come off as unique or different enough from the original to warrant a purchase. This may also be true for a lot of other of the 3DS' launch games such as Pilot Wings, SSFIV, Layton, Ridge Racer etc. I won't bother mentioning the games that were simply of poor quality as their sales would have been insignificant anyway...

Which leaves Steal Diver, which looks cool but definitely not a system seller.

The second reason is that DS games are still selling phenomenally well, especially outside Japan. Many customers have better products to spend their money on.

The third reason is technically the same as the second, but deserves a category of it's own: Pokemon, obviously.

even with all those, I can't understand the size of the gap between expected sales and actual sales...

Are these really Nintendo's projected numbers for 3DS software alone? Even if the 3DS sold all 4 million units by now, the attach rate needed to sell 15 mil. units of software is nearly 4:1 which is absurd for the launch of a new console...

The 4:1 ratio is another reason why this numbers should be shipped, 2.5m hardware in 6 days and 15m in just more than a month was impossible to be intended sold to customers.



CURRENTLY PLAYING: Xenoblade (Wii), Super mario 3D land (3DS), Guild Wars (PC)