megaman79 on 08 May 2009
Iwata speech that argues reasons why Japanese Wii slowdown is not neccesserily going to occur in other countries. Although this is long i thought i would post an important argument, which also contradicts the widely held 3rd party lack of sales excuse in the West, and proves to some degree why financial analysts are full of sh--.
Full article is here - http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/090508/index.html
I particularly liked the description and evidence regarding sleep users and active users. Its clear Nintendo are really doing their homework on market expansion.
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And one more thing: the composition of gaming populations are significantly different between Japan and the U.S. I'd like to explain this by using our gaming population surveys that I referred to earlier today. |
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As you may have noticed when I showed you the results of our own surveys, one notable difference between Japan and the U.S. is that the ratio of sleep-user reaches approximately one-fourth of the entire Japanese gaming population but, in the U.S., there were only 7% of sleep-users. In other words, this is the difference caused by the fact that Japan has experienced the "gamers' drift" but the U.S. hasn't. Also, the increase in active user ratio, or the expansion of gaming population, was triggered by the DS in Japan but in the U.S., it was mainly caused by Wii. So, there are some things in common between Japan and the overseas markets but there are also major differences in environments. Isn't it too simplistic to conclude that the U.S. market follows the Japanese market? Why don't we see the consumers compositions of DS and Wii by age and gender? |
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This is the Japanese DS players' composition according to our most recent survey. People in a fairly wide range of age are enjoying playing with Nintendo DS, and the male and female breakdown appears to be well balanced. |
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This graph shows Nintendo DS' consumer composition based upon our most recent survey in the U.S. Compared with Japan, the adult portion is not yet fully expanded, and we see further growth opportunity there. As I said, the DS ownership ratio to the population in the U.S. is just about half that in Japan, so there still must be the room for the expansion. |
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On the other hand, this is the Wii consumer composition according to the most recent survey in the U.S. A rather well-balanced customer base can be found throughout all the age groups. A wide variety of different groups of both male and female customers appear to be enjoying Wii in the U.S. |
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And, this is the Japanese Wii consumers' composition. In comparison to the U.S, we see the peaks in age groups of children and their parents, resembling to camel with two humps. We saw a similar composition for DS owners in Japan in its early expansion stage, but as DS penetrated further into the Japanese market, the composition changed into a very well-proportioned one throughout the different generations that you saw earlier today. In Japan, Nintendo has been trying to realize the same user composition for Wii with the U.S. but we have not achieved this as of yet. We can confirm this from a different perspective. |
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That is, presence of Wii third party software largely differs between Japan and the overseas markets. In Japan, we were often pointed out that only Nintendo software could sell on Nintendo platforms, not third party software. As for DS, we also received this kind of comment at the initial phase of sales expansion in Japan. However, as the Nintendo DS increased its installed base, the situation changed. However, we continue to receive such comments on Wii even today. |
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I have shown you this graph before but this shows the sales transitions of Nintendo's and The Pokémon Company's software amongst all the DS software sales since the launch of Nintendo DS in Japan. We have updated the previous graph with the most recent data. From this graph, you may notice that the ratio of Nintendo software was rather large for the first two years. As I explained this before, Nintendo believes that hardware has to launch with attractive first party titles one after another. These first party titles' mission is to be attractive enough for potential purchasers that they'll want to buy the hardware to play the software. This in turn sets the course for hardware to steadily penetrate the market. Because of this belief, we try to launch quality titles one after another during the first two years of a launch of new hardware. As a result, the ratio of first party sales in the market tend to increase. However, especially with new hardware platforms with new concepts like Wii and DS, we though it imperative to pave the way with our first party titles. After the hardware realizes a certain level of its installed base, third party software publishers become willing to launch a variety of different titles, according to which the customers composition start to become better proportioned throughout the different age groups. This mechanism worked well for DS in Japan. |
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When we look at the situation of Wii in Japan, we cannot say that the mechanism which worked on DS is working on Wii. Two years after its launch in Japan, in the latter half of the previous fiscal year, we were not able to largely increase the ratio of third party publishers sales in Japan. Between DS and Wii, the time needed by publishers to create one software is very different. We have heard that some developers were facing challenges in creating unique software that matches with the brand new concept of Wii. While we were unable to establish the software market with more third party titles, we were also unable to make the timely new proposals with new Wii software in the former half of this year. This is the background with which Japanese sales of Wii lost its previous momentum. However in Japan, the much-anticipated Monster Hunter Tri will be launched in the coming summer. Several new strong Wii titles are expected to follow. We recognize that this is an important, challenging time for us. We will challenge to increase the presence of third party titles on Wii. On the other hand, the situation in the U.S. market is very different. |
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In the Unites States, ever since the launch of Wii, overseas software publishers have actively been developing their Wii software. There are several million seller titles from the third parties. NPD data has made clear that, in the calendar year of 2008, Wii was the hardware on which the biggest number of third party software were sold in the U.S. The third party software lineup for Wii and their presence are very much different between Japan and the U.S. We are analyzing that these factors may be causing the differences in Wii's momentum in Japan and in the U.S. |
“When we make some new announcement and if there is no positive initial reaction from the market, I try to think of it as a good sign because that can be interpreted as people reacting to something groundbreaking. ...if the employees were always minding themselves to do whatever the market is requiring at any moment, and if they were always focusing on something we can sell right now for the short term, it would be very limiting. We are trying to think outside the box.” - Satoru Iwata - This is why corporate multinationals will never truly understand, or risk doing, what Nintendo does.
