Is Nintendo's past the key to its future?

Nintendo is in a weird place right now. The company’s handheld system, the 3DS, has been going strong for the last eighteen months. 2013 saw a massive increase in 3DS sales both domestically and abroad, bringing the total numbers sold up to 35.98 million as of September 2013. This success is not limited to hardware, as software sales have crested 16 million units (physical and digital) in 2013 alone, showing an amazing 45% increase on the previous year. For a console in its third year of life to be pushing this hard is great news for Nintendo.

Nintendo’s black sheep

On the other side of the coin we have the Wii U, the ghost at the feast that forced Nintendo to re-evaluate its sales forecast from 6.8 million units sold to a more-attainable 4.3 million this fiscal year. More worrying than that is the fact that console’s primary competitor, PlayStation, beat the Wii U’s total sales for 2012 and 2013 in just 2 days!

In fact the situation seems rather dire, and many are calling attention to similarities between Nintendo’s business model for the Wii U and Sega’s for that most infamous of failures the Dreamcast (best summed up in this comic). Industry experts have even suggested that Satoru Iwata should lose his job over the apparent failure of the Wii U.

Do you remember 2011?

Things do look grim, but Nintendo does have a track record of turning poisonous mercury into glittering gold. The most recent example is none over than the 3DS itself, which during its debut in 2011 was far from the much-loved handheld we have today. In fact I can remember it very clearly because I was among the naysayers myself. To me, the 3DS was an overpriced gimmick, unworthy of a “real” gamer (I may have been less likeable back then).

She’s the belle of the ball now but it wasn’t always this way.

I wasn’t the only one who was less than impressed, and this is reflected in the sales figures of the time which showed a massive slump after a successful launch. People just weren’t impressed with the console and the main draw of the 3D was failing to entice people the way Nintendo had hoped. In fact after just 6 months on the shelves, Nintendo dropped the price of the 3DS by $70 in the hope of winning customers around. Since then things have gotten better for the 3DS and like many the console I once reviled and mocked is now my go-to gaming platform.

So what made 2013 such a great year for the 3DS?

Simple: Games. It’s easy to forget that when people spend so much time talking about everything other than them. Sure Netflix is good, Facebook is fun and Twitch.tv is interesting but I buy a game console for games and 2013 sure did deliver for the 3DS.
We had amazing JRPGs like Fire Emblem: Awakening and the awesome Bravely Default, Link was back in Zelda: a Link to the Past, and of course Pokemon X and Y took the Pokemon franchise to a whole new level. And this is just the tip of the iceberg!

Link will never let us down!