Company says it’s looking like an incredibly successful Christmas, which accounts for 55% of sales
Marke Andrews
Sun
Nintendo DS is enjoying extremely strong Christmas sales. The DS (Dual Screen) is a handheld system.
Richmond-based Nintendo Canada is enjoying strong Christmas sales of both hardware and software, despite the launch of the sophisticated Microsoft Xbox 360 console in late November.
“It’s looking like an incredibly successful Christmas, especially for Nintendo DS,” says Pierre Trepanier, marketing director of Nintendo of Canada, who said 55 per cent of the company’s sales are made over the Christmas shopping season.
Trepanier says Nintendo hasn’t really felt the effects of the Xbox 360 launch.
“They are completely different markets,” says Trepanier. “When you’re spending a thousand bucks for a new system, you’re in a very different segment than people buying GameBoy. You can get a GameBoy and game for $100.”
Trepanier’s figures are somewhat exaggerated. Microsoft released the Xbox 360 on Nov. 22, selling the premium model for $499, and the core model for $399. The less-expensive core model requires a 20-gigabyte hard drive, which sells for $130. Microsoft projects sales of 2.75 million to three million consoles by late February.
By comparison, both the GameBoy and the GameCube console, which is not a portable, sell in the $100 range. The GameBoy Micro, launched in September, sells for $129 and the Nintendo DS goes for $169.
Since launching the GameBoy player in 1989, Nintendo has been head of the hand-held pack, withstanding challenges from a score of portable players, including Nokia’s N-Gage. The biggest challenge has come from the Sony PlayStation Portable, which launched in Japan last December, and in North America in March.
In sales of hand-held games units in Canada, PSP is third to GameBoy Advance and Nintendo DS, a dual-screen player which Nintendo launched last November and has sold 8.8 million units worldwide in 12 months. From October, 2004, to September, 2005, GameBoy Advance’s sales in Canada were 427,780, Nintendo DS sold 119,069 and PlayStation Portable sold 109,224.
GameBoy, in its various forms, has sold more than 67.6 million units worldwide to date. GameBoy software sales exceed 280 million games sold.
Trepanier says the relatively low cost of Ninetendo players, and the variety of games available for all units, explains why they sell so well.
“The library of games for GameBoy is up over 800 games now,” says Trepanier, who claims Nintendo has “90 to 95 per cent” of the portable market.
Nintendo has had great success with the virtual-pet game Nintendogs, which is popular with girls as well as the traditional male games player. Many consumers who bought Nintendogs also bought portable machines to play them on, meaning they were just getting into video games.
“Games like that have the potential to expand the gaming population, and Nintendo has always focused on expanding the gaming population,” says Trepanier.
The company continues to produce new software. This week, Nintendo released Super Mario Strikers, a five-on-five soccer game with armed players, explosive goal-scoring and electrified fences that opposing players can be slammed into. Vancouver’s Next Level Games developed Super Mario Strikers for the Nintendo GameCube.
Nintendo of Canada has donated 150 copies of the new game to children’s hospitals across Canada.
Nintendo recently announced that purchasers of next year’s new Revolution game machine, which still does not have a release date, will be able to get a password-controlled play control system, whereby parents buying the unit for their children can block them from playing games meant for older gamers.
The system rates games in four categories: E for Everyone; E10+ for 10 and Older; T for Teen; and M for Mature.
Meanwhile, Vancouver games studios Radical Entertainment and Electronic Arts Canada are counting on big sales from their games.
Kelly Zmak, COO and senior vice president of product development for Radical Entertainment, said both Crash Tag Team Racing, released two weeks ago, and Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, released in October, “are doing very well in the marketplace,” although he would not give numbers of units sold or shipped..
Trudy Muller of Electronic Arts expects Need for Speed Most Wanted, which is available for 11 games platforms, to be a good seller, in addition to The Sims 2, FIFA 06. NHL 06 (in Canada) and Madden NFL 06 (in the U.S.).
© The Vancouver Sun 2005