Nintendo Highlights Its Decades of Hardware Sales

StewShearerOld

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Jan 5, 2013
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Nintendo Highlights Its Decades of Hardware Sales

Nintendo has sold a lot of hardware over the past thirty years.

It's easy to forget sometimes, what with the Wii U's sales being so abysmal that actual acts of nature could be to blame, that Nintendo has been in the console game close to thirty years, much of which was spent selling hardware hand over fist. Perhaps sensing that gamers could use a reminder of its once near ownership of the games industry Nintendo recently released its <a href=http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2013/annual1303e.pdf>annual report which, among other things, included figures detailing just how much hardware and software the company has sold over its long history. Put succinctly, it's a lot.



Since the launch of the Famicom in 1983 Nintendo has sold a whopping 287.97 million consoles along with 2.2 billion pieces of corresponding software. If you thought that was impressive, the house that Mario built has also moved an additional 385.15 million handheld units since the release of the original Game Boy along with another 1.91 billion units of portable software. That sound you hear coming from your mouth is a long, Reeves-esque "Whoa."



Granted, past accomplishments don't equal present day success. In fact, the annual report itself notes that the company, overall, posted an operating loss coming out of the most recent fiscal year. Even so, the numbers are nonetheless impressive and could arguably serve as a reminder for all naysayers that, no matter the company's current trials, its been in the business longer than many gamers have been on the Earth. In other words, the Wii U might be hurting but Nintendo itself is nowhere <a href=http://www.gamespot.com/news/nintendo-will-survive-100-years-and-outlive-zynga-says-oddworld-creator-6412154>near down for the count.

Source: <a href=http://www.gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=209151>GoNintendo


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MrMixelPixel

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Kumagawa Misogi said:
268.97 million consoles sold in 30 years well done Nintendo.

Meanwhile Sony looks at the 333 million+ consoles they have sold in less than 20 years.

For software sales

(http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/data/bizdatatitle_e.html)

Though I'm not sure of the quanties as there is no key.
I think the most impressive thing here is the handheld dominance honestly.

Edit: My apologies if this is unclear. I do mean that Nintendo's handheld dominance is impressive. NINTENDO's.
 

Eri

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So what I'm getting here is that an absurd number of people buy consoles and never buy many games.
 

Eri

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Kumagawa Misogi said:
Eri said:
So what I'm getting here is that an absurd number of people buy consoles and never a game.

Were do you get that from?
Doesn't it just seem odd that the game to console attachment rate isn't higher? Maybe that's just me.
 

MrMixelPixel

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Kumagawa Misogi said:
MrMixelPixel said:
I think the most impressive thing here is the handheld dominance honestly.
Nah Nintendo has always owned handhelds even if the 3DS is probably the last one it should sell at least 60 million lifetime.

Though the game attach rate for handhelds is quite a bit lower than I thought it would be.

Consoles 8 games each while handhelds it's only 5.
I was referring to Nintendo in regards to "handheld dominance".

Of course Sony doesn't stand a chance in that area x3
 

Vivi22

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Kumagawa Misogi said:
nomaner said:
Do those handheld numbers include the short lived Virtual Boy and Game Boy Micro?
The Game boy micro was just the 3rd redesign of the gameboy advance so yes for that but I don't think there including the Virtual boy as no image of it is included.
I'd guess they're probably including the Virtual Boy sales (though maybe not since they aren't significant I suppose), but either way I doubt they want to remind anyone of that one.
 

AzrealMaximillion

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Sadly if Sony showed their hardware sale
Kumagawa Misogi said:
268.97 million consoles sold in 30 years well done Nintendo.

Meanwhile Sony looks at the 333 million+ consoles they have sold in less than 20 years.
Yeah that's what I was thinking. This isn't the best way for Nintendo to be showing investors how awesome they are if they can just keep looking at the slow WiiU sales.

Then again, Microsoft would look pretty bad compared to both Sony and Nintendo with hardware sales of 102 million in the last 12 years and coming dead last in 2 console generations in a row. And I doubt they'll be selling Xbox One's quickly this generation.
 

Vyress

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StewShearer said:
In other words, the Wii U might be hurting but Nintendo itself is nowhere <a href=http://www.gamespot.com/news/nintendo-will-survive-100-years-and-outlive-zynga-says-oddworld-creator-6412154>near down for the count.
Once the new Zelda, Smash Bros. and Bayonetta 2 are out sales will go up considerably. (I don't even like Bayonetta, looks yah, game meh) It's not like it's a bad console, just that there aren't too many games out for it yet. It was the same for the PS3 and look how that turned out. They could just release a new decent Starfox game and it would do wonders as well.

OT: of the consoles shown in the thread I own all except the NES, Wii U and 3DS - the latter 2 which I will probably get within the next year since my old DS is broken and I am interested in the Wii U entries of some Nintendo IPs. The SNES and the GBA have to be the best consoles out of all of them. Terranigma, Secret of Mana 1 & 2 (and Evermore), Turtles in Time, Star Fox, Mega Man X, Mega Man Zero, Mega Man Battle Network, Advance Wars, Zelda, Metroid Fusion etc etc..... amazing stuff. N64 didn't have a big library, but it had some of the best games ever made: Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, both Zelda games, Star Fox 64 come to mind. Gamecube had Smash Melee. xD And Twilight Princess + Eternal Darkness. All these consoles had their own unique library which made owning any of these a special thing unlike the 360 vs the PS3 for example.

There was a difference if you owned an SNES vs Sega Megadrive/Genesis. There was a difference if you owned an N64 vs PS1 vs Sega Saturn. And they maintained this unique vibe their consoles have which makes owning a Nintendo console special to this day. Owning a Wii U and a PS4 will make sense whereas owning an Xbone and a PS4 will likely not make any sense at all.
 

Aiddon_v1legacy

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Vyress said:
There was a difference if you owned an SNES vs Sega Megadrive/Genesis. There was a difference if you owned an N64 vs PS1 vs Sega Saturn. And they maintained this unique vibe their consoles have which makes owning a Nintendo console special to this day. Owning a Wii U and a PS4 will make sense whereas owning an Xbone and a PS4 will likely not make any sense at all.
That is something that horrendously irritates me in that the 360/PS3 and now PS4/XB1 are just homogenizing even further. Ultimately I blame 3rd parties for that since they seem to demand everything be samey lest they have to be truly CREATIVE.
 

CriticalMiss

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Eri said:
Kumagawa Misogi said:
Eri said:
So what I'm getting here is that an absurd number of people buy consoles and never a game.

Were do you get that from?
Doesn't it just seem odd that the game to console attachment rate isn't higher? Maybe that's just me.
You also have to consider than some of those consoles sold (although probably not that many) will be replacing broken hardware, so some people may have had more than one console and throw the figures off slightly. Plus I imagine a lot of Wiis were sold to physiotherapists because of the WiiFit and they didn't buy any other games.

These numbers kind of back up my opinion that Nintendo are better at handheld gaming than consoles right now, not to say they are crap with consoles (despite WiiU sales).
 

Aiddon_v1legacy

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CriticalMiss said:
These numbers kind of back up my opinion that Nintendo are better at handheld gaming than consoles right now, not to say they are crap with consoles (despite WiiU sales).
More like there just isn't any competition in the handheld sector. Up until the PSP they slaughtered anyone else and even then the PSP was VERY distant second place. No one BUT Nintendo knows how to do handhelds correctly.
 

Hero of Lime

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Been a nice run so far, but it must get better, especially for the Wii U.

Vyress said:
StewShearer said:
In other words, the Wii U might be hurting but Nintendo itself is nowhere <a href=http://www.gamespot.com/news/nintendo-will-survive-100-years-and-outlive-zynga-says-oddworld-creator-6412154>near down for the count.
Once the new Zelda, Smash Bros. and Bayonetta 2 are out sales will go up considerably. (I don't even like Bayonetta, looks yah, game meh) It's not like it's a bad console, just that there aren't too many games out for it yet. It was the same for the PS3 and look how that turned out. They could just release a new decent Starfox game and it would do wonders as well.

OT: of the consoles shown in the thread I own all except the NES, Wii U and 3DS - the latter 2 which I will probably get within the next year since my old DS is broken and I am interested in the Wii U entries of some Nintendo IPs. The SNES and the GBA have to be the best consoles out of all of them. Terranigma, Secret of Mana 1 & 2 (and Evermore), Turtles in Time, Star Fox, Mega Man X, Mega Man Zero, Mega Man Battle Network, Advance Wars, Zelda, Metroid Fusion etc etc..... amazing stuff. N64 didn't have a big library, but it had some of the best games ever made: Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, both Zelda games, Star Fox 64 come to mind. Gamecube had Smash Melee. xD And Twilight Princess + Eternal Darkness. All these consoles had their own unique library which made owning any of these a special thing unlike the 360 vs the PS3 for example.

There was a difference if you owned an SNES vs Sega Megadrive/Genesis. There was a difference if you owned an N64 vs PS1 vs Sega Saturn. And they maintained this unique vibe their consoles have which makes owning a Nintendo console special to this day. Owning a Wii U and a PS4 will make sense whereas owning an Xbone and a PS4 will likely not make any sense at all.
Pretty much what I came here to say, certain Nintendo home consoles may not sell like crazy, but the console war sure would be boring without a quirky Nintendo console or two. Plus, that last paragraph of yours just makes too much sense.
 

FungiGamer

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StewShearer said:
It's easy to forget sometimes, what the Wii U's sales being so abysmal that actual acts of nature could be to blame, that Nintendo has been around close to thirty years, much of which was spent was selling hardware hand over fist.
Close to 30? I hope that was a typo for "close to 120"?