Topic: Skyward Sword Sales Surge in First Week

[Patchkid15]

Super Mario 3D Land and 3DS sales also soar.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/28548

Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime revealed some impressive statistics regarding the sales of the Nintendo 3DS as well as two of their holiday titles in a recent USA Today interview.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, released last week, sold an impressive 535,000 copies. According to Fils-Aime, this makes Skyward Sword the fastest selling Zelda title of all time.

Similarly, Super Mario 3D Land, released on November 13, has sold over 500,000 copies since its launch. This makes Super Mario 3D Land the fastest-selling portable Mario title for the company.

The 3DS also had strong sales in the past week. Sales for the system rose 325% above sales for the week of November 6, the week before Super Mario 3D Land's release. The week during Super Mario 3D Lands release only saw a 49% rise. This surge in sales has allowed the 3DS to pass the Nintendo DS's total first year sales.

It was also revealed that during Black Friday sales alone, the Nintendo Wii sold 500,000 units.

[Enner]

A half of a million units in one week on a system at the end of its life cycle looks pretty good to me.
The same number in two weeks for a new system is good as well, right?


I'm curious to see how these sales will soften Nintendo's recent report of a loss.

[Chocobo_Rider]

I wonder how many times news like this has to come out before the general gaming media will stop proclaiming Nintendo things "dead."

Ah well ...

[broodwars]

These sales numbers are good, but I have to admit after weeks of seeing Skyrim or Modern Warfare 3 selling millions of units in the same or less amount of time, seeing Zelda "only" sell half a million copies is a little...underwhelming by comparison.  Still, it's a good start for Zelda, though we'll see what kind of legs this game has, especially in Japan (considering they were relatively lukewarm on Twilight Princess).

[GoldenPhoenix]

These sales numbers are good, but I have to admit after weeks of seeing Skyrim or Modern Warfare 3 selling millions of units in the same or less amount of time, seeing Zelda "only" sell half a million copies is a little...underwhelming by comparison.  Still, it's a good start for Zelda, though we'll see what kind of legs this game has, especially in Japan (considering they were relatively lukewarm on Twilight Princess).

Nintendo games tend to have slower starts but they sell consistent, while games like MW3 lose steam extremely fast after a massive storm of sales. new super mario bros didn't sell a ton at first, but sold consistently throughout the following months.

[xcwarrior]

But I thought Nintendo is doomed? These numbers don't help that debate at all.

[Ian Sane]

So you take a system with a large userbase, release virtually nothing for an entire year, finally release a big title around Christmas and $$$.

The N64 used to have this all the time.  Every time a big first party release came out it would sell like gangbusters with N64 owners starving for a new title.

Super Mario 3D Land is very similar.  Every 3DS owner has been dying for some sort of decent game so they all grabbed the first one to show up.  I would hate it if Nintendo decided this was a good strategy.

[Chocobo_Rider]

@GoldenPhoenix

The hyping of MW4 will probably begin in January. =P

@xcwarrior

+1

[GoldenPhoenix]

So you take a system with a large userbase, release virtually nothing for an entire year, finally release a big title around Christmas and $$$.

The N64 used to have this all the time.  Every time a big first party release came out it would sell like gangbusters with N64 owners starving for a new title.

Super Mario 3D Land is very similar.  Every 3DS owner has been dying for some sort of decent game so they all grabbed the first one to show up.  I would hate it if Nintendo decided this was a good strategy.

So you are saying Super Mario 3D Land or Skyward Sword do not deserve to sell well? I'm sorry but every console in existence people snap up "decent" games. 3DS just came out and it has a ton of quality titles in its future, so I really don't see your point. Is it because it was like about every console in history and took a few months to have some great games to come out? Remember PSP? Remember DS? Funny thing is that I recall previous Mario titles for about any NIntendo system in existence selling very well. That Nintendo and their strategy of releasing games people want to buy, shame on them.


The fact is that the Wii is on the way out, games always trickle out when it is so close to a new generation.

[Luigi Dude]

These sales numbers are good, but I have to admit after weeks of seeing Skyrim or Modern Warfare 3 selling millions of units in the same or less amount of time, seeing Zelda "only" sell half a million copies is a little...underwhelming by comparison.  Still, it's a good start for Zelda, though we'll see what kind of legs this game has, especially in Japan (considering they were relatively lukewarm on Twilight Princess).

The Japanese perfered the colorful Wind Waker artstyle over the realistic Twilight Princess artstyle, which is why Phantom Hourglass did better than TP even though it came out over 6 months later in Japan.  Twilight Princess is the worst selling main series Zelda in Japan but it still managed to do between 500-600k.  After TP came out Phantom Hourglass managed to sell over 900k (which is the best any Zelda has sold since Ocarina of Time in Japan) and then it's sequel Spirit Tracks managed between 600-700k.

Since Skyward Sword uses a more colorful artstyle again, it'll probably do better then Twilight Princess in Japan.  Either way it's guaranteed to do somewhere between 500-900k since that seems to be around the size of the modern Zelda fanbase in Japan.

[NWR_Neal]

Don't the Call of Duty games continue to sell until the next year's game, more or less? I'm pretty sure they show up on the NPDs for most of the following year.

Not trying to knock anything, but Call of Duty has been pretty much kicking the crap out of almost everything outside of Nintendo's biggest-legged games.

[BlackNMild2k1]

hate to take the wind out of this threads sales talk, but have you guys seen the 360's BF week sales numbers?
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/forums/index.php?topic=18481.msg708100#msg708100

[Ian Sane]

So you are saying Super Mario 3D Land or Skyward Sword do not deserve to sell well?

I think both games would have sold very well no matter what.  But the big surge of sales in the first week is largely due to the lack of titles released recently on either system.  The surge is caused by the "FINALLY I have a game to play" factor.

[Mop it up]

I wonder if the reason that Nintendo never have record opening sales is because they don't produce millions of copies for release. Knowing Nintendo's conservative nature, I wouldn't be surprised if those 500,000-some copies were about all Nintendo shipped for the week.

[MegaByte]

Black Friday might have done some damage to supply, but I saw stacks of Mario and Zelda at several stores several days after launch.

[Ian Sane]

I wonder if the reason that Nintendo never have record opening sales is because they don't produce millions of copies for release. Knowing Nintendo's conservative nature, I wouldn't be surprised if those 500,000-some copies were about all Nintendo shipped for the week.

The only Nintendo product I have not been able to get ahold of on day one has been the Wii system itself.  Maybe I just live in a good area for this but the supply always seems to be good.  You never get the scenario where the store only got one copy with Nintendo.

[Ceric]

I wonder if the reason that Nintendo never have record opening sales is because they don't produce millions of copies for release. Knowing Nintendo's conservative nature, I wouldn't be surprised if those 500,000-some copies were about all Nintendo shipped for the week.

The only Nintendo product I have not been able to get ahold of on day one has been the Wii system itself.  Maybe I just live in a good area for this but the supply always seems to be good.  You never get the scenario where the store only got one copy with Nintendo.

Most of the time its that no one bother to put it out on launch...