Nintendo Back in Business on Black Friday
By Kyle Mann | November 28, 2011 | News | No comments | Share
Despite the 3DS not selling to expectations and the Wii’s waning success at retail, Nintendo bounced back with a fine showing on Black Friday. The traditionally high sales volume week of Thanksgiving was exceptionally kind to the Japanese gaming giant, seeing some huge increases in both hardware and software units moved week-to-week.
Here’s how it breaks down: Super Mario 3D Land apparently moved more units more quickly than any other handheld Mario game to date, over 500,000 copies to be more precise. The plumber’s portable efforts helped to effect one great week for Nintendo 3DS hardware, as Reggie Fils-Aime has indicated a 325% sales increase over the previous week–a week which already was up 49% from the period prior. The popularity of the handheld at retail has pushed it over a significant milestone, as it sold more units than the Nintendo DS did in its first year in only eight months’ time.
We know that Black Friday and that entire week is a key selling week, and it is important for products like ours to have a jump in momentum, and we were fortunate to see that. For us, it really was driven by unique and powerful software and what gives us confidence is that we still have more software to launch in the balance of this holiday period.Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America
Nintendo was also eager to paint a rosy picture for its home console sales, in spite of the lame duck Wii console ready to be phased out in favor of the Wii U next year. Consumers picked up over half a million of the games console, making for the best Black Friday the popular system has seen yet–not bad for a five-year-old device. The sales were no doubt driven by the first full Zelda Wii game since the system’s launch: Skyward Sword sold 535,000 copies, becoming the fastest-selling game in series history. With the battle-hardened games company flying in the face of gloom-and-doom predictions, it seems plausible that Nintendo will overcome once again.
