Here is a simple chart that I've been playing with. It comes from the
Consolidated Sales Transition by Region files:
(nb, I'm pretty given to messing up simple arithmetic and copy-pasting numbers backwards, so the actual chart is probably a flat line or something; if so, my bad)
These are the total
software sales for Nintendo from 1998 up until the end of last month, listed on a yearly basis. It shows a fairly typical pattern which is common for this particular industry (and in other growing industries): A series of repeated humps, peaking higher during each "generation" of product (this applies to the portable chart -- the home chart had Nintendo hitting a point of potential irrelevancy in its market during the "GameCube" era). High points happen a couple years into the generation, after the new products have fully ramped up production but before consumer interest has started to dwindle. The low points are during "transitions" between these generations, when most consumers who would be interested in purchasing the product have already purchased the product, and interest starts to shift in other directions. One additional common cause of these dips are customers holding back after hearing of upcoming, improved product lines.
Observations:
Heh, it looks like the "epic" E3 conferences happen just before a substantial increase in software sales. This is not necessarily a causal pattern (though there are causal links, notably an increased need for the company to show off better software!).
The transition for portable sales is pretty much at the same level as the previous transition, but it seems that it may bounce upward more quickly instead of languising in a depressed state, given third parties' more aggressive stance towards the 3DS. This is just speculation, though -- note that there was still a solid drop from the previous year even though nearly half of the fiscal year included the "Big Three" in Japan.
The transition for home sales is much healthier. Right now, the low point is
over twice as high as the low point last year. It would have to decrease by quite a bit to be considered a drop off back to the pre-Wii era, and I believe that this puts Nintendo in a stronger position going forward. However, unlike the portable transition, we are most certainly going to have another low year in 2012/13, one which stands a good chance of being lower than this year's sales.
Feel free to play with the pretty picture in your head.
