A new Bloomberg article talking about the relocation of Nintendo of America’s Sales, Marketing, and PR departments has an interesting bit of information. Straight from NOA spokesman Ken Toyoda, it seems that Nintendo is making the move in an effort to help Wii sales meet their full potential in the United States. Apparently, daily shipments (to some retailers) and constant sell-outs aren’t enough.
“Sales in the U.S. have not reached their potential, Toyoda said. The Kyoto-based company has in the past sold about twice as many consoles in North America than in Japan or Europe, he said.
Nintendo has so far sold about 2.37 million Wii consoles in the U.S., 2 million in Japan and 1.47 million in other regions, including Europe, he said.”
Those numbers, of course, come from the fiscal year report in April (on data through March). I’m inclined to think that if Nintendo really had higher expectations for Wii sales this early in the game, they would’ve shipped more from the start. As we know, Nintendo played it safe and shipped a more reasonable amount from a cautious business perspective, and if anything should be more than thrilled with the sales they’ve gotten.
However, if they think moving will help the company sell more Wii units that still need to be shipped, it’s all fine by me. I’m still clinging to the possibility that three of our favorite NOA execs haven’t departed the company because of the move.
