Appealing to women is crucial for 3DS sales in Japan

The 29th of October was an important day for Nintendo, the highly anticipated investors strategy briefing in Tokyo with Kimishima at the helm this time. A lot of news was expected, and the fans were not disappointed. News about the first mobile game called MiiTomo, news about the successor to Club Nintendo. But also, looking back to sales data for 3DS software and hardware sales. The 3DS sales have been going up in the West, more so then in Japan. Growth is good, though this might be because of the release of the New 3DS in the past year, while Japan already had the new device in 2014. Software sales are down a bit in all regions, which can largely be attributed to the release of Pokémon ORAS and Super Smash Bros last year. I was surprised to see that when you look at the three regions, both titles sold best in America, with Europe coming up second. And here I thought that sales in Japan would far surpass those in the West! Nintendo hopes that releases of Yokai Watch and in the West and Yokai Watch Busters in Japan will bring the numbers of software sales up. I was pleased to see too that Happy Home Designer is a crucial title for all regions. What made me pay extra attention to the press coverage is the fact that appealing to women in Japan is crucial to maintaining the sales momentum with the 3DS. Not surprising to me is the fact that 70% of the people who play Happy Home Design in Japan are female, and Nintendo intends to keep their interest by releasing New 3DS faceplates for the title soon.

I’ve written about this before, the way I didn’t understand how marketing for games is primarily aimed at men. It was about time that the ladies gamers market got a bit more attention. So finally, one of the big gaming companies sees the potential of the female gaming market!