Nintendo Q2 FY3/2016 Corporate Management Policy Briefing, Part 3: Wii U

Splatoon and Super Mario Maker are having similar effects on the Wii U business as did MK8 and SSB4 last year.

☆ NintendObs Event – Nintendo Q2 FY3/2016.

Next, I would like to talk about Wii U.

This graph shows the comparison between the Wii U software sell-through numbers from last year and this year in the Japanese market.

You can see that Splatoon released on May 28 and Super Mario Maker released on September 10 have boosted the sales pace, surpassing that of last year.

In May, we globally released Splatoon for Wii U as a completely new IP. This is a 4-on-4 online combat game in which players skillfully switch between “squid” and “human” character forms while they compete to cover the largest part of the battle area in ink. We were able to receive high commendation from many consumers regarding the fun of playing this brand-new and unique game only Nintendo can offer.

In Japan, the combined sales figure of its package version and download version surpassed 905,000 units as of last week and we are certain it will reach a million within this year.

In Splatoon, we are also making an effort from an operational perspective to create opportunities for consumers to continue playing the game even after some time has passed from its release, by distributing new content, such as additional maps and weapons, and periodically holding in-game exclusive events called “Splatfests.”

We believe this is an important activity to keep up the operating rate and momentum of the software, and enabling users to enjoy the software for a longer time.

In addition, the Wii U title Super Mario Maker, which was released globally in September,

is a game in which you use the Wii U GamePad to freely create a 2D Mario course that you can upload and share worldwide via the Internet; in other words, it’s a “create and play” Mario software title.

Since its release, this title has been showing steady sales in each market, and has reached one million sell-through units within the first three weeks of its release.

The characteristic of this title is that, with time, more users create and submit courses, the fun increases and the software becomes more and more exciting. We will continue our activities to convey the fun to consumers in order to bring the sales peak to the year-end sales season.

As of last week, there were more than 3.3 million different user-created courses available, and they had been played more than 150 million times.

This graph shows the comparison between the Wii U hardware sell-through numbers from last year and this year in the Japanese market.

Regarding Splatoon, there were many consumers who purchased the software with the Wii U hardware.

Nintendo has seen in its history several situations where the release of one software title becomes a dramatic positive turning point for the hardware, and we believe that Splatoon has the kind of potential that can make many people willing to purchase the hardware if it is sold with this software.

Together with the release of Super Mario Maker on September 10, the periodic release of strong titles gave momentum to the sale of hardware, resulting in a higher sales pace compared with last year at this moment.

We will launch a new set of Wii U hardware with Splatoon preinstalled at the end of the year. By making this set appeal to a wide range of consumers, we will work to keep consumers’ attention and increase sales over a long period of time.

This graph shows the comparison between the Wii U Nintendo-published software sell-through numbers from last year and this year in the US and European markets.

Due to the continuous sales of Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, both released last year, and the release of the two strong titles Splatoon and Super Mario Maker released almost at the same time as in Japan, the pace of sales is exceeding that of last year’s in the US and European markets as well.

This graph shows the comparison between the Wii U hardware sell-through numbers from last year and this year in the US and European markets.

Compared to the Japanese market, the hardware has not been moving as much by these strong titles. However, we still feel that Splatoon and Super Mario Maker are pushing the sales of the hardware in the overseas markets as well. We believe that our continued efforts to appeal to younger generations will pay off and show their effects in the form of hardware sales in the holiday sales seasons, such as Thanksgiving and Christmas, so we are expecting the growth in sales to come.

This slide shows the already announced Wii U titles that have either been released in each region in October 2015 or are awaiting release.

In addition to Nintendo-published titles, the lineup of software from other software publishers is becoming richer, so we would like to keep the momentum gained by Splatoon and Super Mario Maker.

— Tatsumi Kimishima, President of Nintendo
Source: Nintendo JP, Nintendo JP.