javi741 said:
Ardormor said:
Yes, im from Europe.
I read the comments about Nintendo + Eastern Europe.
Nintendo never cared about all the countries east from Germany (and for some good reasons). You have to remember the history of the eastern block. Till early 90s video game industry wasnt allowed (so almost no gaming till 90s). After the USSR fall apart and later in the 90s and early 2000 the piracy was super high due to poor standard of living and it was mostly PC focused (it was easier and cheaper to pirate games).
Sony was the first to officialy launch their console - PSone in almost all the countries in the eastern block. Sega tried a bit earlier in 94 with Saturn and some paper magazine ads mostly in Poland, Russia, Czech Republic. (but they had problems selling Saturn in US and Japan), so they quickly left the market. If i remember correctly the first bigger marketing campaign in almost all eastern european countires was connected to the DS and Wii era. They almost left the market in the 3DS and WiiU era, and are back with Switch marketing again. The problem is mostly Nintendo. They are not offcialy present in most of the Eastern European Countries - like Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Balkans (region), Ukraine etc. They use third-party companies to make their marketing and distribution. This means a lot of problems to customers - no offical support, no language support, high prices (becuase of the extra % added from the distributors).
Most of the eastern european customers doesnt feel right about the Nintendo policy. They feel like 3rd class customers so they naturaly choose PlayStation consoles or Microsoft one.
Years of market negligence almost establish the Eatern Europe as Sony Land. Nintendo have to do a lot of work if they even wanna try to get the customers here. At least people are slowly discovering Nintendo games and they really wanna play it, especially kids.
Personally i think now is the time for Nintendo to get the market - They have good console with quality games. The piracy is all-time low - people are getting richer and wanna spend more money on entertainment.
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Do you think the Switch will do better in Eastern Europe as time goes on?
Also did the Gameboy do successful in Eastern Europe? The Gameboy sold 40M in Europe so it makes me believe it might've had some presence there.
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Switch is already breaking all the records sales for Nintendo in the Eastern Europe Market. I can give u some insider market analysis and sell-through data.
For example the lifetime Wii U sales is about 3500 units in Poland. After first 9 months of being on the market the Wii-U sold (350), yes 350 units in Poland. Switch sold 2000 units in first 7 days. And some shops event reported that the first 7 days of Switch launch was bigger than PS4 or Xbox One 7-days launch period.
Nintendo invested some money in marketing ads (tv ads, social-media ads, outdoor banner ads) throught the official eastern European Nintendo distributor called "ConQuest Entertainment" and this is making the Switch more popular in Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia.
In Russia switch has 7-8% of the console gaming market (at the end on 2019) and its a record break for any Nintendo Console - before the Switch it was always below 1%. PS4 has 75% marketshare (about 2 million consoles), rest belongs to Xbox One.
In Czech Republic Switch is selling better than any other Nintendo Console. Also better than Xbox One - but still far more less than PS4.
So after Nintendo made some presence in the Eastern European market with ads, people just started buying Switch - it will be very hard to beat Sony, because of their almost 30 years of full presence, but the market is here. Russia is about 3-4 million market, Poland is about 1-1,5 million market, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary combined are about 0,750 million market. Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania maybe somehwere around 1 million market. Balkans with Romania and Blugaria are about 1 million market. By millions i mean units sold, not vaule. So in the Eastern Europe u can sell around 10 million+ systems and the market for consoles is growing quite fast.
There is potential for Switch to sale more especially with the marketing Nintendo is doing here.
About Gameboy - it was ultra popular in West Europe, but not very in Eatern Europe. In the 90s u just cant buy the system anywhere expect big cities and few shops. It was mostly imported from Germany to Poland, Czech Republic, Russia etc, and the prices were very high. I dont think the Easter Europe has more than 5% of the Gameboy 40 million total sales in Europe.
BTW.
The most fun fact connected to the pandemic and switch sales is the stock of switch in Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary. These countries almost didnt have any stock issues and for example i went with some friends to Poland and bought regular switch for around 330 US dollars. You can still do it, but the price is now bit higher about 350 dollars.
Last edited by Ardormor - on 11 July 2020
