Early this morning, Nintendo released its financial reports for the past nine-month period, which ended in December of 2015, and it offers us quite a bit of insight on the company and how they’ve been doing this past year. Additionally, it’s given us a bit of information about what to expect from the upcoming months, and Nintendo’s plans with games and releases.
If you’d like to take a look at the full report, you can check it out here. You can get a lot of interesting details about the profits made in yen, USD, and euro, and you’ll be able to see where Nintendo stands financially as of right now, as well as their plans for the future. For a quick rundown of some of the more interesting points, however, keep reading.
Quite a few titles for both the 3DS and Wii U reached the one million mark in sales. In fact, the highest selling 3DS game this year was actually one that was much newer, coming out towards the end of 2015: Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer. The game sold just shy of 3 million copies, with a near equal amount of units sold in Japan and overseas (about 1.5 million). Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, which saw its release towards the end of 2014, also did quite well, selling just over 1.5 million copies this year, making the total over 10 million copies worldwide.
Mario Kart 7 is also still seeing huge success, with 1.3 million copies sold, making the total since its late 2011 release 13 million. Super Smash Bros. saw 1.1 million copies sold this year, bringing the total to almost 8 million copies. Even Tri Force Heroes just barely hit the million mark with 1.08 million copies sold, which is still impressive considering its release so close to the end of the year mark!
It’s also worth noting that amiibo are still seeing amazing success, with 20.5 million units and 21.5 million units sold of the figures and cards respectively. The toys-to-life don’t seem to be losing any market and are seeing a steady stream of profitability.
The Wii U didn’t see quite as many successes, however it did have some stand-out sellers. Splatoon, to nobody’s surprise, not only hit the million mark, but reached a grand total of over four million units sold. Super Mario Maker isn’t far behind at 3.3 million, which is extremely impressive considering its September release date.
Mario Kart 8 continued to sell well with just over 2 million copies this year, bringing its total to over 7 million, and Yoshi’s Woolly World sold 1.3 million copies, wrapping up the Wii U’s success. Keep in mind that the units counted include bundles and digital downloads!
You can also check out 2015’s release schedule, but as all of those games have come out, we’re not really going to touch on them here. Instead, much more interestingly, we’re going to take a look at 2016’s planned schedule, which is also included in the report. This list only includes primary Nintendo products, meaning you won’t find any third party titles on here (those are on a different list!) but it does, however, mention games that it’s publishing but not necessarily developing, and these are all marked accordingly. It also lists these release dates by region, so if you’re looking for something specific, it shouldn’t be hard to find!
Among the list of scheduled releases is Fire Emblem Fates (February 19th), Hyrule Warriors Legends (March 25th), Twilight Princess HD (March 4th), Pokkén Tournament (March 18th), and Star Fox Zero (April 22nd). Two titles of interest that are worth noting are Genei Ibun Roku #FE and “The Legend of Zelda,” both of which still do not have official dates but continue to be listed for a 2016 release.
Overall, the report tells us that Nintendo is doing alright, but not great. Unfortunately, Nintendo’s profits did fall about a third compared to last year, going from $493 million to $336 million. It’s no secret that President Kimishima wants to raise Nintendo’s profits by four times the amount they earned last year, with a plan stretching over the next couple of years, though at this point all we can do is hope that these plans come to fruition. Nintendo’s problem comes mainly from its dependency on its legacy titles, with most of its profits coming from a handful of names, rather than being spread out across everything it puts out. And honestly, what this tells us is that if Nintendo’s rumored plans to release the NX this coming year are true, then it’s making an extremely smart decision.
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Written by George Comatas
As a wannabe social media personality and professional in the world of sarcasm, George does his best to always adapt to the changing world around him. He considers himself a maverick: a true-to-heart gamer with the mind of a pop star. Whether this makes him revolutionary or a setback, he's yet to find out. But one thing’s for sure; he's one-of-a-kind.
