'New Super Mario Bros. 2 achieved the highest sales numbers of the year with 5.96 million copies sold.'

Bummer.

2012 was indeed the year of Nintendo.  Now that we're in 2013, we'll look forward to expect MORE from the Big N.

Wii U needs more system-selling killer apps.

Part of the lower forecast probably has to do with pushing back games like Pikmin 3, so it's no surprise. It'll be interesting to see how the system fares throughout this year... I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't sell very well until E3, where it'll spike from the announcements, but then slow again until the holidays.

Thats about 556 million dollars in profit for the wii u games. That is assuming it takes $3 dollars to make a disc and casing.
Not knowing what the loss/profit margin is for the console itself. They had at least 1.05 billion dollars in returns.

Don't forget that Nintendo is including download sales (for instance, we know that Animal Crossing: New Leaf is >500k on just downloads).

By sheer coincidence, I have both those games!  Weird!


I don't get the NSMB2/NSMBWU dislike.  Love them.  Okay, I get that people think they're too similar and safe, but they're what I want.  I remember back before the original DS game when it seemed like Mario sidescrollers were a thing of the past.

Some tweets from a man on the scene at Iwata's briefing:

@gibbogame: overseas will release  fire emblem,brain age, lego city, animal crossing by mid year plus 10 more titles,digital all for 3ds

@gibbogame: wiiu want to do more collaboration with 3rd party developers and not just licensing, wiiu connectivity is 74% and want to enhance pad usage

@gibbogame: google streetview has been delayed from end of jan to mid feb for japan, saying its an example of what want to do with pad in livingroom

@gibbogame: jp animal crossing for 3ds exceeded plans, usa market has been worst for　us with only 2 titles of top 20 from 3ds and no console there

@gibbogame: usa sales were -27% versus japan while previously 2.5x, also blaming competitors were aggressively bundling titles in usa and eu

I don't get it either. Maybe they're upset by the "New" in the title.

The way I see it, the 3D Mario titles are where we see fresh and insane ideas, much like trying out an exciting new menu item we've never had before at a restaurant. And the NSMB titles are where we can get our "comfort food". Sure, it's familiar, but still very enjoyable and sometimes, just what we need.

The best seller was going to be a 3DS game because of the vastly higher install base, and it was kind of a down year for first party 3DS games. Really, it was between it, Kid Icarus and Paper Mario, so it's not at all surprising NSMB2 was the winner.

Even if the 3DS had a better software lineup, NSMB 2 would still have been the top seller.  NSMB was the original DS top selling game doing over 30 million copies.  Then the next game NSMB Wii has sold close to 28 million copies.  I don't see how anyone can be surprised at NSMB 2 selling so good when the previous games were monsters as well.

How dare people enjoy videogames?.. The nerve of them!

Wow. When you put it on the table like that, it really was a pretty terrible year for the 3DS in terms of retail Nintendo releases. I disliked, to varying degrees, all three of those games. Thankfully Nintendo were on top form with their download games. Fluidity and Crashmo were exceptional.


@azeke

I didn't say how dare people enjoy video games. I'm just bummed out that the Nintendo game that bored me the most was also the game that sold the most. I'm not trying to be a hipster here, that game truely did not stimulate me.

People are entitled to enjoy whatever they like.

Nintendo also published Mario Tennis Open and Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask in 2012, and minor titles like Crosswords Plus

True. I didn't pick them up, although from all accounts they're quite good. I can't really justify paying full retail price for an arcade tennis game, I'm still burnt out on Layton (having played 1 - 3 over the span of 6 months), and I have the newspaper for my crosswords.

Ultimately I would like fresh and insane ideas in a 2D medium as well.  We went from 2D games being the only games period, to being regarded as "old" and thus being limited to handhelds only, to being incredibly plentiful again but mostly just as safe nostalgic titles.  To me 2D Mario being limited only to "comfort food" is hardly any different than when we were getting no new 2D Marios at all.  And since they have TWO NSMB series you figure they could keep one as the safe series and the other as the experimental one.

So NSMB 2 being the best selling game unfortunately just sends Nintendo the message that the same old bullshit recycled again and again is where the money is (Call of Duty's amazing sales are the same thing).  I don't know if the selling point is "the exact bullshit you played 20 years ago" or merely "2D Mario".  Like does NSMB have to be so safe or would any decent 2D Mario sell just as well.  If they were more creative would it honestly cost them sales?

@ Ian Sane:


Of course it wouldn't, but it would cost significant additional resources to make such a game, and that's resources that they would rather spend on experimental projects elsewhere, like developing unique GamePad concepts for Nintendo Land. With a company like Nintendo, who puts a lot of cash into R&D, brainstorming and creating hardware and software ideas, many of which never see the light of day, it's practical in some cases to build upon an established engine and established gameplay elements, such as with their new 2D Mario game.

I'm not defending this practice, which is obviously business-orientated more than anything, but when they've got the really creative Mario projects like Galaxy and 3D Land going along concurrently with the NSMB series, I'm okay with the latter playing it safe. The 'comfort food' analogy is a good one.

What you're saying makes sense, but you describe in a more neutral way than I would.  I see that more like Nintendo discovering "hey we can make the same amount of money with WAY less effort" and then exploiting that.  Of course cookie-cutter sequel churning has been a thing since videogames began and Nintendo was pretty damn good at avoiding that in the 80's and 90's (SMB: Lost Levels is a very out-of-place exception).  So either Nintendo for whatever reason didn't realize how easy it was to get away with it, or they felt they had to establish their brands better before doing that, or there was a philosophical change in the company when the leadership turned over about ten years ago.

I also would be much more enthusiastic about time and money going to other experimental projects if I had faith in said projects.  Since I see motion controls and the Gamepad as mere gimmicks that provide no real substancial improvement in games (and in the case of motion control it actually makes them WORSE) making 2D Mario more generic sure as hell does not seem worth it.  Hell a HUGE complaint I had with the Wii was that the core games were getting generic while the innovation went into casual titles.  Make the games I'm interested in WORSE to devote resources to making games for a different audience that I'm not part of?  Oh yeah, I'm so in favour of that.

For me though, eating the same thing over and over again is starting to bore the hell out of me. Playing NMSB 2 and NSMB U made me realise that the tropes of that series have long since lost their appeal. Comfort is ok, but at a certain point it just becomes pandering. That series has just become so bloody tedious.

That's just my stance though. Clearly other people are still enjoying these games. All you have to do is look at the sales figures to see that. As Ian Sane said though, I don't understand why Nintendo feel the need to put the 2D Mario games into some sort of rehash ghetto. Why shouldn't they do something interesting with a 2D Mario game? I'm of the age where I can actually remember a time when each and every 2D Mario game felt creative and fresh. Mario 1, 2 (USA), 3, World, Yoshi's Island. All unique, all interesting. The NSMB games by comparison all bleed together. I couldn't honestly tell you what my favourite level is from any one of those games because they're so amorphous.

It seems like everyone is in agreement that Nintendo are playing it safe as far as the NSMB games are concerned. The debate seems to be whether or not them playing safe is ok. Personally? I'm firmly of the opinion that those games are flat out boring.

I'd agree with you, Ian, but looking back, Nintendo's core franchises have been amazing. Galaxy, Skyward Sword, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Punch Out!, Metroid Prime 3, Excitebots, Another Code, Battalion Wars, SSB: Brawl and Xenoblade. That's an amazing line-up.

If Nintendo received the support by Third Parties as the other consoles, we wouldn't complain about games feeling lackluster because we'd have so many great titles. But since Nintendo was pretty much alone to fill their console with titles, it becomes more obvious when energy is being poured into other games that are not focused on us. But to their credit, I think they did an amazing job.

I'm assuming these are just shipped figures, right? That might explain why they cut the forecast for this quarter so drastically: for example, it makes sense if they flooded the channels, but it's illogical to expect sales to drop off so dramatically from their initial expectations if they actually sold 3 million Wii U's to customers.

Sony uses shipped numbers, Nintendo uses sold numbers.

Word on the street is they are sold to retailers, not to consumers yet. I don't know for sure.

This particular numbers ARE shipped.
Iwata later told real sold numbers during QA with investors. Well some of it at least, european ones. But considering we already know american and japanese ones, one may calculate that retailers still have about a million of unsold Wii Us on the shelves and in warehouses.