European and US 3DS sales ‘Not so Good’ right now – Iwata

The Nintendo 3DS in Japan is selling great, Nintendo has that under control. Unfortunately the sales of the console in Europe and America aren’t going as strong.

It’s not as bad as the price-drop triggering sales that were happening last year but it’s still not as good as either Japan or Nintendo’s own expectations.

The issue was brought up a recent Nintendo shareholders meeting and among other funny questions, some serious questions were asked of Iwata and just what he’s going to do about these sales and ultimately the company’s share prices.

[quote]Sales momentum in the U.S and Europe is not so good. Considering that the U.S. and European markets are larger than the Japanese market in terms of the size of the population, sales in the U.S. and Europe are supposed to be larger. At the year end of 2011 the sales momentum in those markets increased in the same way as in Japan; however, the sales pace went down after the beginning of 2012. As a result, the sales proportion of the Nintendo 3DS is now about 20% of the total video game sales in those markets. Thus, solid sales momentum has not been created. For those investors who understand this situation, they might think that our earnings situation will not turn around in the way we have mentioned, or they might think it will take a much longer time than we expect to revitalize the profit situation. With the Nintendo 3DS XL I just spoke about and our key titles, such as “New Super Mario Bros. 2,” to be released globally this summer, one of our immediate top-priority missions is to create sales momentum which can wipe this type of concern away at an early stage.[/quote]

The Nintendo 3DS saw a great boost when Mario Kart 7 and Super Mario 3D Land came out last year, but last year was a long time ago now and output has been slow since. Nintendo’s hoping lightning will strike twice and New Super Mario Bros. 2 and the 3DS XL will help things along.