Everyone has been looking at the major battle going on between the Xbox One and Playstation 4 lately, but what’s going on with Nintendo? The sales figures for the month of November are out, and it seems Nintendo isn’t doing all that well. 770.000 Nintendo 3DS units were sold during November, along with a 220.000 unit count of the Wii U (these are U.S. figures). Sure, we’re always expecting companies to boast on their performance from their own advantageous angles, and this month is no different, with Sony declaring Playstation 4’s launch to be “the biggest in history”, while Microsoft is pointing out that the Xbox One is “the fastest selling console” out there.
But what about Nintendo? Well, they are overly enthusiastic about figures that are nowhere near being great. According to Scott Moffitt, the VP of Nintendo’s North American Sales and Marketing division, Nintendo is doing great, with an increase of 340% in sales over the month of October. “Our hardware is gaining momentum at the exact right time and our software catalog is stronger than ever.” he stated. Which is a little bit far-fetched, given that these sales are mostly boosted by Black Friday events and Christmas bundles, and the amount of content available for the Wii U is severely lacking, to say the least. Also, if we look at overall sales compared to last year, we can see that Nintendo is clearly doing worse, with a drop of almost 50% in overall sales. So while we’re accustomed to see major company officials exaggerate a notch with their statements, this one is particularly misleading.
With a huge content-war between the Xbox and Playstation on the horizon for 2014, we’re not worried about how profitable Sony’s and Microsoft’s consoles will be. They are doing great now, and will surely be doing great next year as well, with an increase in next-gen titles hitting the market. The same cannot be said about Nintendo however, and we’re foreseeing a huge drop in these sales soon enough. If 220.000 units are great now, during a major shopping period of the year, what can we expect for the January-February 2014 period, when sales will inevitably take a huge plunge? It seems Nintendo needs to quickly realize that their sales are actually not looking that well at all, and has to come up with a strategy to combat the competition that is looking towards next-gen gaming and is starting to have the content to go along with it!
Source – NPD November 2013 statistics