3DS game sales up 89% in September
New Super Mario Bros. 2 sells 295,000, helps give system year-over-year software boost
The industry-tracking NPD Group is reporting its September software sales later today, but Nintendo beat the research firm to the punch with a few stats of its own. According to Nintendo, September saw a significant boost in 3DS software sales, up 89 percent year-over-year.
The jump was led by New Super Mario Bros. 2, which topped 295,000 copies sold in its second month on shelves. Nintendo also namechecked first-party titles Mario Kart 7, Star Fox 64 3D, Kid Icarus: Uprising, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, saying each one increased its sales figures over August.
Stretching back a bit further, the original DS launch game Super Mario 64 has now hit the 5 million sold mark in the US. That makes it the third DS game to do so, joining New Super Mario Bros. (10.6 million sold to date) and Mario Kart DS (8.5 million sold).
According to Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter, the news wasn't all good for Nintendo. Pachter noted on his Twitter account that declines in DS software sales more than offset the gains for the 3DS. According to the analyst, combined 3DS and DS software sales were down 18 percent for the month.
Does Pachter have the knives out for Nintendo this week? First the Wii U doom and gloom, and now 89% software growth on 3DS isn't good news? Perhaps he could spend some time pointing out the real issue: that growth spurt was driven largely by first party software. Then again, given Kingdom Hearts apparent success in North America on 3DS, that may not be entirely true.
This is the reality.
With Nintendo the platform doesn't matter. It is always the property that comes first. When their total software sales go down by nearly a fifth despite NSMB2 then they really are in trouble. As is anyone else relying on physically distributed content.
Wherever you go to spout your doom and gloom, I'll pop up to fight you!! Either that or I'll go get my lunch. I expect we'll have to agree to disagree, as it is.
Of more interest, will be actual 3DS hardware sales - Nintendo needs a hardware sales boost in the US.
Bruce, if the total combined in down this month but the individual 3DS is up this month, what does that say about the trend leading into the next few months? Is not the 3DS poised to move into a position to fully retain the boxed sales volumes of the previous year? If 3DS were flat or down, you'd have a platform for debate.
I'd also like to point out that bar Kid Icarus, the titles recently released digitally are the ones that are increasing their total sales from August to September. It'd be fascinating to know what role eShop and digital sales are playing right now in the 3DS software market, and to what extent this is going to grow over the next months and complement success at physical retail.
And to add, anyone should know that if the market went down 24% in September, that that means that the DS/3DS line increased it's share of revenue for that month so nobody with an ounce of skill would see that as a sign of Nintendo struggling to sell them.
With the Nintendo handhelds, the previous generation seems to accumulate a considerable amount of software sales for up to three years after the newest model is released.
Only when a Nintendo handheld struggles to outperform the GBA can we start talking about bad circumstances.
For more information on interpreting Nintendo sales data, please visit http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/sales/index.html
Perhaps the iPhone 5 had an impact on the rest of the industry and the DS software sales.
Edited 2 times. Last edit by Keldon Alleyne on 13th October 2012 10:05am