46 MCV 11/06/10
WWW.MCVUK.COM “
MCV INTERVIEW LAURENT FISCHER, MANAGING DIRECTOR, NINTENDO OF EUROPE
Our goalis to offer great game
experiences that no other platform can
2009 was a successful year for Nintendo globally, but sales did fall for Wii and DS. How did the European side of the business perform last year?
This was the third best fiscal year in Nintendo’s history, despite declines in both sales and profits from records set in the preceding fiscal year. Our Japanese parent company has to announce the sales in Japanese yen, and the higher appreciation of Japanese yen in comparison to the previous fiscal year also had an effect to significantly lower the global sales. In Europe Wii lost some momentum in the first half of last year. However, the strong software line-up in the latter half of 2009 helped regain momentum and total sales of Wii in Europe have now reached over 22 million. Whilst Nintendo DS sales in Europe were lower than the previous year, Nintendo’s share in the handheld market has not shrunk. What has shrunk is the whole handheld hardware market in Europe, possibly due to a shortage of hit titles and possibly because more attention from the public was paid to Wii with such titles as New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Wii Sports Resort and Wii Fit Plus.
Eyes will be fixed on Nintendo at E3 this year. Not only will the platform holder unveil its new 3DS but many expect it to reveal the new titles that will extend the lifespan of Wii, too. Christopher Dring speaks to European MD Laurent Fischer to discuss sales, digital and winning back the core Nintendo fan…
Having said that, I think it is worth remembering that total sales of the DS family of products have now reached over 41 million units in Europe.
What do you say to those who think that the Wii bubble has popped? I think you just need to look at the facts to see this is not true – we achieved global sales of 20 million units of Wii in the last financial year alone. Our aim has always been to expand the gaming population and with European sales of Wii now over 22 million we have taken some steps towards achieving this. However, there are still many more people out there who have not yet experienced the fun of video games and we hope to continue to provide compelling reasons for these people to consider buying a Wii.
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What qualities in big Wii hits like Just Dance can the rest of the games industry learn from? What is unique about this software is the sales trend – the first weeks sales were relatively low and over time its appeal has been spreading and five months after launch the sales pace has remained consistent. This sort of sales trend is similar to what we have experienced with software such as Brain
E3 SPECIAL
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