Nintendo's President Satoru Iwata has presented quite a bit of information about 3DS, Wii, DS, and the upcoming Wii U in his latest investor briefing.
Iwata notes that although 3DS accelerated very quickly globally after its price cut, the cut came too late to meet Nintendo's 16m projection even with Mario Land 3D, Mario Kart 7, and Monster Hunter 3G performing well late in the year. Part of the issue was that the holiday lifts started later in the US and Europe than in previous years.
3DS is set to have the best launch year ever in Japan due to the effectiveness of the price cut and the major games released over the past holiday season.
The 3DS is on a similar trajectory in the US now too, where it has overtaken Wii in having the greatest launch period ever for any hardware platform launched in the country.
3DS has also performed better in Europe than Wii and DS so far in unit terms.
Iwata also provided detailed regional charts and graphs, starting with Japan, where he noted it was highly unusual that no home console sold 100,000 units in in late 2011.
Portable hardware on the other hand performed exceptionally well late in 2011 with 3DS growing enormously and the Vita launching to strong week one figures.
Iwata notes that Monster Hunter for 3DS in 2011 provided a big lift ala the big week 48 spike for PSP with its Monster Hunter in 2010. As we've previously noted on VGC, hardware sales in Japan also bucked the global trend and rose substantially from 2010 to 2011:
Software, in contrast to hardware ran far behind the 2010 pace in Japan as the old hardware base began to upgrade to new hardware.
In the US, December was a soft month relative to how strong November was and the historical growth from November to December in previous years.
Iwata notes that "...not just the Wii, but the overall performance of home consoles in December was lower than the previous year, and I think that the market is now waiting for a new proposal for home consoles."
3DS and DS, in contrast to the consoles, had more normal growth in December.
Unlike Japan, the US hardware market shrank despite the 3DS and remained flat for software even with X360 and 3DS growing (all others were flat to down).
Unlike in Japan and in the US, Wii was the best selling console in Europe during December 2011 according to Nintendo's data.
3DS scaled up similarly in Europe and the US.
In the main markets of Europe, the UK, France, Germany and Spain, Iwata says Wii, X360, 3DS and PS3 each sold about the same volume of hardware in 2011.
Software continued declining in Europe, as DS and PSP continue shrinking very quickly. Like in the US, it looks like only 3DS and X360 software grew in Europe from 2010 to 2011.
Looking ahead, Iwata believes the March 2013 year should be much better for Nintendo financially than the current fiscal year. He says "in the first half of the next fiscal term [by September 2012], we are now anticipating to get out of the situation that we sell the [3DS] hardware below cost."
Since 3DS did pick up substantially after the price cut, climbing ahead of the Wii pace, Iwata noted "This brought a pleasant surprise to the video game industry and changed the thoughts of third-party software developers for the better. We are now expecting a strong software lineup for the platform. The specific titles will be released by each software developer, so I will not mention them here. I can say, however, that there will be more and more highly-anticipated titles for the Nintendo 3DS even in the U.S. and Europe where home console game systems lead the market."
3DS also has a good internet connection rate which bodes well for the system. Iwata claims that the connection rate is "approximately 60% both in Japan and the U.S. [about 4.5m people through the end of 2011], which is the highest among our handheld video game systems, and the rate of the consumers who repeatedly access the Nintendo eShop is also, by far, the highest among them." Nintendo's "Nintendo Direct" messaging via the Wii and 3DS has also reached hundreds of thousands of people according to the company.
The other 3DS hardware news is that the platform will be launching in Asia in the March 2013 year. In addition to whatever third parties will announce, Iwata also said a 2D Mario game is set to launch for 3DS in the March 2013 year.
On the Wii U, Iwata noted that Wii U would launch in Japan, Australia, Europe, and the US by the end of 2012. Iwata also made a pretty interesting claim about the Wii U:
"Already by now, the Wii U is known for its new controller with a screen, among other features. For this controller, please be advised that we have decided to install a NFC function.
As many of you know, NFC is the acronym for Near Field Communication, which is a set of standards to establish radio communication in close proximity. The NFC I’m referring to here is the noncontact NFC standard that is compatible with FeliCa and MIFARE, and is expected to be widely used around the world in the near future.
By installing this functionality, it will become possible to create cards and figurines that can electronically read and write data via noncontact NFC and to expand the new play format in the video game world. Adoption of this functionality will enable various other possibilities such as using it as a means of making micropayments."
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