The Nintendo View

For both software and hardware, March 2008 was an amazing month for Nintendo. Not only did its two main systems – the Wii and the DS – each sell around 700,000 units for the month, but Super Smash Bros. Brawl took #1 on the software chart with sales of 2.7 million units.

Every time Nintendo has increased the supply of Wii hardware to the United States, consumer demand has soaked up practically every system available. As has been previously noted in this monthly column, it will be very interesting to watch how Wii supply and demand eventually equilibrate, whether it happens this year or much later.

With the release of Brawl in March 2008, Super Smash Bros. games have appeared on three successive Nintendo consoles. The original Super Smash Bros. debuted on the Nintendo 64 in 1999 and Super Smash Bros. Melee appeared on the GameCube in 2001. To get an idea of the size of Brawl's first month of sales, consider the following graph showing the LTD sales of each title:



In its first month, Brawl has already outsold the entire lifetime sales of the original Nintendo 64 game and reached 70% of the lifetime sales of the GameCube iteration. Interestingly, NPD data reveals that the Super Smash Bros. Melee for the GameCube actually sold around 10,000 copies during March 2008.

Many have commented on the state of the U.S. economy and the robustness of the videogame industry. If in fact some sector of the videogame-buying population is feeling economic uncertainty or even constraints, it seems possible that the Wii would benefit in such an environment. That is, when weighing a system purchase in the face of a recession, the Wii stands out as far more attractive simply on the basis of price if nothing else. If consumers look further to consider the price of software, the Wii begins to look even more affordable, since all new Wii software, except for Guitar Hero III (and soon Wii Fit), tops out at $50. Nintendo has always priced its hardware for the cost-conscious consumer, and that custom may serve it especially well during an economic downturn.

Another point about Nintendo and its software strategy: it appears dedicated to providing a steady stream of reasonably high quality titles to drive the Wii software market. Consider that it launched with a Zelda game in November 2006, then followed up with WarioWare Smooth Moves (January 2007), Super Paper Mario (April 2007), Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (August 2007), Super Mario Galaxy (November 2007), and now Super Smash Bros. Brawl (March 2008). Given the regularity with which Nintendo is providing its big name software, it would be interesting to know how third-parties plan the publication of their products.