In August last year, Nintendo began to actively introduce digital distribution as a user delivery channel — This is a strong change in the strategy for the company, which previously remained somewhat away from this sphere. At the time of WII, the company took extremely cautious steps to develop online business. With the launch of 8WII U and 3DS, the situation has changed for the better.
The experiment justifies itself. Nintendo President Regina Fils-Aime, in an interview with the GameSindustry resource, about the US market after a reporting conference, noted that digital sales quickly become a significant business and bring a tangible share of income. Of course, in the future, this trend will only intensify.
«We have 15 published Nintendo games available both on physical media and digital form [on 3Ds], — He said. — To date, in 2013, 11% of the sales of these 15 projects passed entirely through digital distribution channels». Indicators are even more interesting in individual games. For example, the game Fire Emblem: AWAKENING was sold by a circulation of 240 thousand copies in the United States, and a third fell on digital shape.
Mr. Phils-Eme mainly spoke with journalists about the successful 3DS, because Wii U things are going on so far it does not matter — The home game console has yet to arouse wide interest in the market, which is expected after upcoming games announcements this year.
In 2013, until April 15, 3DS games increased by 55% compared to the indicators of the previous year, including physical and digital distribution channels. In general, 3DS demonstrates very successful results — For two years, 8 million devices have already been sold on the US market, 1 million more predecessor.
67% of the American owners of Nintendo 3DS use the Internet from their portable gaming systems, and most of them have found something interesting for themselves in the digital store Eshop. Reggie Phils-Eme notes that more than 41 million downloads in ESHOP were made all the time (this includes full-fledged games, applications like Nintendo, DLC, demonstrations, free positions and so on.
3DS is criticized for the slow withdrawal of new games, but in the next 9 months the pace of the appearance of new gaming projects for the mobile console will increase radically, according to Mr. Phils-Eme. The same applies to WII U, although before E3 the company prefers not to be spreading especially about this. The head of Nintendo America noted: «Relatively WII U I can say — And Mr. Ivat has already talked about it — that the pace of withdrawal of games on the market for this new prefix were below the expected level. But we are preparing for E3, and the frequency of launches for WII U must increase dramatically».
It is interesting at the same time that Nintendo, unlike competitors like Microsoft, is not going to pay special attention to non -game entertainment, continuing to make the main bet on games. «We are sure that consumers acquire our systems primarily as gaming, and then enjoy other entertainment capabilities, and therefore we make such a significant emphasis on the game», — Narki Fils-Eme noted.
Let’s see how such a focus strategy will justify itself and how successful and attractive for users a summer line of games will be. After all, Wii U needs to hastily strengthen your market position and prepare for the launch of the Sony PlayStation 4 platform at the end of the year (and almost certainly the new Microsoft Xbox).
Source:
- Gamesindustry.Biz