What a difference a couple of years makes. It seems like only yesterday Nintendo was an unstoppable juggernaut, its consoles and handhelds tearing up the sales charts. In 2011, things are a little different.
Nintendo just put out its financial earnings release for the three months of Apr-Jun 2011, and they're grim reading, especially for the company's newest piece of hardware, the 3DS. In short: hardware sales have fallen off a cliff.
Global DS sales are down from 3.1 million this time last year to 1.4 million this past quarter. Wii sales are down by 50% as well, from 3 million to 1.5 million sold. That would be OK if the new 3DS was doing a roaring trade, but in the past three months only 710,000 of the new handhelds have been sold. Worldwide.
That's...wow. Compared to the graceful decline of the PS2, those drop-offs will have alarm bells ringing at Nintendo HQ. Here's hoping for their sake the Wii U is a big hit!
UPDATE - Nintendo has responded to the 3DS' terrible sales with a massive price cut, effective August 12.
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