Nintendo seem happy with July’s NPD data, though they are unlikely to say otherwise, even if Xbox outsold both DS and Wii individually.
Nintendo Sells More Than 650,000 Hardware Units in the U.S. in July
Nintendo sold more than 650,000 video game systems in July – more than any other company – according to the independent NPD Group, which tracks sales of video game products in the United States. The Nintendo DS™ family of systems sold nearly 400,000 in July, and Nintendo’s Wii™ console marked its 45th consecutive month of more than 250,000 units sold with July sales of nearly 254,000. These tallies bring the 2010 U.S. sales totals through the end of July for Nintendo DS to more than 3.4 million and Wii to more than 2.71 million.
Five of the top 10 best-selling games of July play on Nintendo systems. These include Super Mario Galaxy™ 2 for Wii at No. 4 with more than 192,000 sold, LEGO® Harry Potter™: Years 1-4 for Nintendo DS at No. 5 with nearly 142,000 sold, LEGO® Harry Potter™: Years 1-4 for Wii at No. 7 with more than 133,000 sold, DRAGON QUEST IX®: Sentinels of the Starry Skies™ for Nintendo DS at No. 8 with more than 132,000 sold and New Super Mario Bros.™ Wii at No. 9 with more than 128,000 sold.
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Nice line up for Nintendo at GamesCom this year but no word of the 3DS.
- Metroid: Other M (Wii)
- Tetris Party Deluxe (Wii/NDS)
- Wii Party (Wii)
- Professor Layton and the Lost Future (NDS)
- Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii)
- Golden Sun: Dark Dawn (NDS)
- Kirby’s Epic Yarn (Wii)
- Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Miniland Mayhem (NDS)
- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)
- Art Academy (NDS)
Source
New game videos and DS demos await on the Nintendo channel. Here’s what’s new.
Demos
Dragon Ball: Origins 2
Rooms DS
Battle of Giants: Mutant Insects
Deca Sports DS Cheerleading Demo
Deca Sports DS Ping Pong Demo
Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth
Bakugan Battle Brawlers
James Patterson’s Women’s Murder Club: Games of Passion
Videos after the break.
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Here are some of the main points taken from the financial briefing of Nintendo chief, Satoru Iwata from a few days ago. The executive discusses basically everything so grab a drink and have a read!
- We believe that Nintendo’s sound business development in the mid-and-long term will basically benefit all of the stakeholders. In other words, we need to regularly release products that can offer positive surprise to our customers and to try to make efforts to spread that meaningful surprise in order to maximize the number of our consumers who are willing to purchase our products. We should be responsible for solid results in every fiscal year in order to not have people worry about our future by saying that Nintendo’s rapid growth through Nintendo DS and Wii was just very lucky and nothing but temporary. If we can have our shareholders acknowledge in mid to long run that pure luck alone could not have yielded the actual sales results of Nintendo DS and Wii and that Nintendo is the corporate organization which has the ability to sustain such performances, it will dispel the concerns about our future business and, as a result, lead to a high valuation by investors in the long run, I believe. For the time being, we are concentrating on our new hardware, Nintendo 3DS, because it is very important to make Nintendo 3DS as popular as, or to make it more popular than, Nintendo DS which has been appreciated by so many people around the world. Of course, we are not focusing on just the new product that we have announced. For Nintendo DS and Wii which already have well-established installed bases, we are aware of the significance of developing quality software to continue to enhance their popularity.
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Yes, they’re still loaded!
Nintendo Co., Ltd. today announced consolidated first-quarter global financial results for the three-month period between April and June 2010.
Consolidated financial results for April-June 2010 in millions of yen:
April-June 2010 April-June 2009 % change
Net Sales 188,646 253,498 -25.6
Operating Income 23,342 40,401 -42.2
Ordinary Income -46,055 64,824 –
Net Income -25,216 42,316 –
To view an English translation of the complete financial results please visit http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/index.html
For the first three months of this fiscal year, the company reported year-on-year increased unit sales for Wii hardware, but reported declines for Wii™ software, Nintendo DS™ hardware and software. In addition, the rise in the value of the Japanese yen in comparison to the corresponding three months a year ago had a significant negative impact to net sales when reported in the Japanese yen.
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New game videos and DS demos await on the Nintendo channel. Here’s what’s new.
Demos
Dragon Ball: Origins 2
Picross 3D
Rooms DS
Battle of Giants: Mutant Insects
Deca Sports DS Cheerleading Demo
Deca Sports DS Ping Pong Demo
Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth
Bakugan Battle Brawlers
James Patterson’s Women’s Murder Club: Games of Passion
Videos are after the break.
Read more…
New game videos and DS demos await on the Nintendo channel. Here’s what’s new.
Demos
Dragon Ball: Origins 2
Picross 3D
Rooms DS
Battle of Giants: Mutant Insects
Deca Sports DS Cheerleading Demo
Deca Sports DS Ping Pong Demo
Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth
Bakugan Battle Brawlers
James Patterson’s Women’s Murder Club: Games of Passion
Videos are after the break.
Read more…
Attendees at the upcoming Comic-Con International 2010 will have an opportunity to experience two of the summer’s most anticipated video game releases. For the first time since 2006, Nintendo of America will be a featured exhibitor at the annual Comic-Con expo, scheduled to take place July 22-25 at the San Diego Convention Center. Visitors will be invited to enjoy hands-on demonstrations of DRAGON QUEST® IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies for the Nintendo DS™ family of portable systems, which launched on July 11, and Metroid™: Other M for the Wii™ system, which launches across North America on Aug. 31. Both games will be available at the Nintendo booth, #2944.
The latest installment in the popular DRAGON QUEST franchise, DRAGON QUEST IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies features deep customization options and remarkable wireless features that let players of all kinds embark on an epic hand-held adventure. Players can choose their own appearance, occupations, companions and special items to aid in their quest, and even connect with friends for cooperative multiplayer fun.
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It’s that time of the month again when Nintendo gloat over their continued success. This time it’s the turn of Super Mario Galaxy 2 and DS (again).
U.S. Sales of Nintendo’s Super Mario Galaxy 2 Cross the 1 Million Mark
In the month of June, U.S. sales of Nintendo’s Super Mario Galaxy™ 2 for the Wii™ system reached 548,000 units, according to the independent NPD Group, bringing the game’s cumulative nationwide sales to more than 1.1 million units. Also in June, Nintendo systems sold a combined 933,000 units, accounting for 50 percent of all gaming hardware units sold in the United States. The Nintendo DS™ family of hand-held systems topped the charts with more than 510,000 units sold, bringing life-to-date unit sales to nearly 42 million. Wii system sales totaled more than 422,000, closing in on a cumulative milestone of 30 million units sold in the United States alone.
“Consumers continue to look to Nintendo for exceptional value and one-of-a-kind gaming experiences,” said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “Between games like Super Mario Galaxy 2, the pioneering motion controls of the Wii system and the portable fun of Nintendo DS systems, Nintendo offers something for everyone. As we prepare to launch a remarkable lineup of new games in the second half of the year, we are grateful that consumers are supporting Nintendo consoles to continue their run as the nation’s most popular game systems.”
Six of the top 10 best-selling games of June play on Nintendo systems. These include Super Mario Galaxy 2 for Wii at No. 2 with more than 548,000 sold, New Super Mario Bros.™ Wii at No. 4 with more than 200,000 sold, Just Dance™ for Wii at No. 5 with nearly 175,000 sold, Toy Story 3: The Video Game for Nintendo DS at No. 6 with more than 164,000 sold, Wii Fit™ Plus with the Wii Balance Board accessory at No. 7 with more than 148,000 sold and LEGO® Harry Potter™: Years 1-4 for Wii at No. 9 with more than 136,000 sold.
For more information about Nintendo, please visit www.nintendo.com
Ok, this is getting crazy! The 3DS must blow you away when you have it in your hands as so many people have so many good things to say about it. It really feels Nintendo have got everything right with this one and the quotes from the Japanese developers below seem to confirm this too:
Hideo Kojima
“I wear glasses, so I’m happy that 3D glasses are not needed. I directed the E3 demo. It was based off Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater, but the backgrounds and character modeling were all redone in high polygon. It’s not finalized, but we’re thinking about CO-OPs and other things — elements fitting of a 3D and portable game machine.”
Suda 51
“I was able to feel the speed of video game history and also the feeling of ‘We’ve come this far.’ To express the game I want to make in a word, it’s ‘The Next Game.’ Nintendo 3DS is the arrival of ‘The Next Hardware.’ So, ‘The Next Game.’”
Hideki Kamiya
“Games with dynamic scale are okay too, but I personally would like to take a different approach from the large screen and make a 3D game where you can enjoy the feeling of existence of portable 3D.”
Toshihiro Nagoshi (Super Monkey Ball 3DS)
“If future portable game machines demand that both social aspects and immersion be satisfied for when you play multiplayer and single player for instance, 3DS firmly answers these with Wi-Fi and 3D. I’d like to make a variety of proposals.”
Nagoshi also said that he believes the 3DS is an expected “conclusion” from Nintendo, feeling that starting with the 3DS, the company has seemed to have pursued game hardware as toys.
More after the break.
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Hideki Konno caught up with Wired to talk some serious 3DS. If you are looking forward to this console like the rest of the planet you should give this a read.
Hideki Konno on how the 3DS’ screen works…
“The basic technology is quite old. For example, like a lenticular sticker where you shift it left and right and it shows different pictures. If we simply prepare a picture for the left eye, and a picture for the right eye, and the eyes each see a separate picture, it looks 3-D. The theory is the same, although it’s not a lenticular screen.”
Konno on why no one has used that technology in a videogame system before…
“We have been doing these experiments for a very long time, starting from the NES era. We also tried with the Virtual Boy. And even for GameCube, with the development of Luigi’s Mansion, we were thinking of developing a 3-D version of it. However, at that time it was very difficult to realize it as an actual product on the market, because of the resolution of the screen and the separate costs of the console and screen…We have been waiting, going to tech shows and seeing the latest 3-D technology and devices that support those features. We started to have more confidence that this might be a good time to bring 3-D back to Nintendo.
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According to THQ’s executive VP of global publishing Ian Curran anyway:
“What excites me even more [than 3DS games] is that there’s technology built in that device to really combat piracy. The problem with the DS market in the last few years, particularly with the DS Lite, is that it’s just been attacked by piracy. It’s made it almost impossible to shift any significant volume. The DSi combated it a little bit, but the 3DS has taken that a step further. I actually asked Nintendo to explain the technology and they said it’s very difficult to do so because it’s so sophisticated. They combated the piracy on Dsi, which they don’t believe is cracked yet – but they know they’ve been hurt across the world and they believe the 3DS has got technology that can stop that. Therefore the opportunity for people to invest more in product development [on the system] and bring more 3DS products to market comes out of that. It’s going to probably cost us more to do it all in 3D – so we want to make sure we get a return on our investment when we do it.”
This will be very welcome news to developers everywhere as the DS has suffered badly over the last few years with millions, if not billions of dollars being lost to piracy.
Thanks C&VG
