Yearly Global Sales and Releases of Nintendo from 1983-2016

The number of games released per year by Nintendo are shown with the \(\underline{black\space line}\) , and the global sales for the respective years are shown by the \(\underline{orange\space line}\). Looking at the two lines, we can see there is a relationship between the game releases by Nintendo and the rise in global sales. We can see there is a meteoric rise in global sales even when the number of games released had a steady growth. This suggests that Nintendo had monopoly over the gaming market until 2005, when other consoles started to take over. Their global sales peaked in 2005 with global sales reaching over $200 million.

Nintendo’s Market Share

Nintendo was a leader in the gaming sector and had the biggest market share. The other companies at the time could not even come close to the global sales of Nintendo. What could be the reason?

The main reason why Nintendo was able to manage and get 23.5% of the market share was because of it’s innovative consoles that no other company had. The interesting characters and a strong track-record of quality led Nintendo to have a loyal fan base, who would wait for hours in lines to buy new games.

Change in Global Average Sales Of Nintendo Over Time

The graphs show that Nintendo had the top selling games with an average yearly sale of 51.2 Million dollars. This trend changed in 2010 when Electronic Games overtook Nintendo and became the top-selling Publisher. Nintendo’s average sale sunk to a mere 10.5 million dollars.
This was mainly seen due to an underwhelming response from the new releases due to lack of innovation and a hike in prices.

Popular Consoles over Different Periods

The popularity of Nintendo was so famous that even when the number of games released were declining, the sales did not follow the same trend. During this time, while other companies were focusing on graphical improvements for games, Nintendo had a different approach. For the first time it brought about the concept of motion gaming wherein players had to physically move to play certain games. This happened along with a new console called the Wii. From the graph, it is observed that the Wii quickly gained popularity and therefore attempted to bring back the sales figures Nintendo had hoped.

Change in Market-Share After 2010

From 2010 onwards, Nintendo had a decline in sales.
Once a market leader with 25.5% market share, Nintendo now only had a 11.6% market share and it is still on the decline. The rise of Nintendo was due to its ability to innovate. In the recent years, the company has only been focused on making sequels of old games which is the reason why gamers are losing interest. Another reason for the decline is due to the competition being fierce and more upgraded in terms of hardware.