That's fine. But if it follows more or less the same trends as the DS and all their other handheld systems, should that be "
causing alarm bells to ring" and
worry, or should we assume that Nintendo should naturally be prepared for this (even though we are talking about Nintendo here...), and that we should expect their next system within a couple of years?
You don't think a 40% Y/Y decline in
the only viable product line the company has, in the region that accounts for 37% of their 3DS hardware sales, is cause for alarm?
Because, looking at
consolidated sales, it seems to me a decline in the 4th fiscal year seem to be the norm.
The GBA peaked in hardware in its 3rd full fiscal year, sure. But its 4th full fiscal year coincided with the release of its successor.
The NDS didn't peak until its 4th full fiscal year, and begun declining in its 5th.
The 3DS is looking to have peaked in its
2nd full fiscal year, since the revised projection is 13.5M units and, well it's a Nintendo projection so they probably won't hit it. This in the absence of a successor on the market.
The 3DS is peaking earlier, at a lower level.
(Or I'm reading that wrong and someone can correct me.) EDIT: Oh, I see you're looking at the Japanese shipments specifically; then it's just peaking similarly in terms of timeframe, but at a lower level, despite that the region now accounts for the plurality of system sales.
