Devs, you may be asking yourself: what’s up with Nintendo’s Amiibo business? Ask no longer: Nintendo reports this week that it has shipped roughly 6.5 million Amiibo to retailers in the nine months ending December 31st, 2016.
That’s nothing to sneeze at, but it’s still less than a third of the approximately 20.5 million Amiibo Nintendo sold in during the same period a year prior (see chart below.) That’s a signiicant drop, especially when you consider that the remarkable sales of Amiibo following their late 2014 debut wound up having a notable impact on Nintendo’s flagging finances.
These numbers come courtesy of presentation materials released to Nintendo investors this week alongside the company’s latest earnings report, which shows that 3DS hardware/game sales are doing well while Wii U sales are tumbling. Nintendo is now believed to have ceased Wii U production in Japan as it turns to focus on next month’s launch of its Switch console, which will also support Amiibo.
You can find other interesting bits and pieces of information, including Super Mario Run’ latest official iOS download count (78 million) and Nintendo’s official stance on supporting 3DS after Switch launches (“we plan to continue both businesses separately and in parallel”), in the full presentation slide deck.
