Over the past several years, Nintendo of America hasn't released many games in the summer. We finally got an answer about it.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/40657/heres-why-nintendo-doesnt-release-games-in-the-summer
Over the past few years, you might have noticed that Nintendo of America avoids releasing games in the summer. As a matter of fact, they've only released one retail game in the month of July since 2007, and that was a bundled version of all of the Wii Sports Club games. When we interviewed Charlie Scibetta, Nintendo's Senior Director of Corporate Communications, he let us know why that is.
"We do the bulk of our business in the holiday season, probably about 60% in October, November, and December," Scibetta said.
That's why the video game industry in general backloads the whole year, but it seems that Nintendo of America feels the disparity more than other regions. He also cited school graduations as another key time for game launches, which likely explains Nintendo's recent trend of releasing major games in late May/early June.
Scibetta summed it up thusly: "You want to launch games when people are in the mood to buy." And even if it makes some of us die-hards unhappy, people aren't in the mood to buy Nintendo games in America during July and August.
I am confused by this reasoning though. A game like Xenoblade would be perfect for release over the summer. Summer vacation? A ton of time for people in school to play games? Anyone?
Something tells me the reason Nintendo does the bulk of their business in those last 3 months + May is because that's the only time they release games. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Something tells me the reason Nintendo does the bulk of their business in those last 3 months + May is because that's the only time they release games. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Probably true, but I think it's fair to suggest there's seasonailty in sales of video games as well generally. Is it that unrealistic to think there may be expected higher sales in periods which there's a good "excuse" for family/friends/relatives to buy games for others?
Something tells me the reason Nintendo does the bulk of their business in those last 3 months + May is because that's the only time they release games. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Probably true, but I think it's fair to suggest there's seasonailty in sales of video games as well generally. Is it that unrealistic to think there may be expected higher sales in periods which there's a good "excuse" for family/friends/relatives to buy games for others?
My issue with this excuse is that we've HAD successful games that released in the Summer (June->August) period before. I don't doubt that sales, in general, are lower than the pre and post-summer periods, but that didn't stop games like Bioshock; Infamous 2; Transformers: War for Cybertron & Fall of Cybertron; The Last of Us; Tales of Xillia 1 & 2; Splinter Cell: Blacklist; The Last Story; Persona 4 Arena; etc. from being at least reasonably successful. Hell, several of those were incredibly successful (Bioshock, The Last Story, & The Last of Us).
This especially comes off as a bit weak when one of the biggest games of the year just released last week in Batman: Arkham Knight. There's an audience in the Summer that a smart company can cater to with the right marketing & effort, so naturally Nintendo's avoiding it.
It's also worth noting that Splatoon, a game that's for all intents & purposes a "Summer" game (it only released a few days short of June), has been a pretty massive success for Nintendo.
