3DS Struggles and More From Nintendo's Yearly Update

26.04.2011
Nintendo presented their yearly Financial Briefing on Tuesday in Japan, with president Satoru Iwata heading up the call to the company's investors. Among a lot of granular data on the sales of games and hardware were some interesting points among the presentation. We've noted down the things that stood out to us the most, but to be clear upfront, there was little insight into the upcoming "Wii 2." This was a presentation based on 2010 and early 2011 data, so everything up to the 3DS launch was covered.

Nintendo saw a 29% drop in sales from their last financial year, but continue to forecast promising sales for their platforms in spite of two of them in decline. Iwata said Nintendo expects to sell 13 million Wiis for the rest of this fiscal year, plus 11 million in DS hardware and 16 million 3DS. The older platforms are expected to continue a nice trend mainly through sales of Nintendo's long-standing bestsellers like the New Super Mario Bros. series.

During a press conference before the actual briefing, Iwata made to the media regarding the Tohoku earthquake disaster's effects on Nintendo's business. In general, he doesn't see game system sales improving in the country until autumn.

As for the 3DS, the events of the earthquake naturally slowed the sales of the handheld and its games and likely contributed to overall sales coming just under Nintendo's forecasts (though obviously, Iwata didn't entirely blame the disaster). Iwata called this a sort of "starting from zero," suggesting that a renewed marketing campaign for the 3DS might be in the future.