The November NPD Results are in, Nintendo Exclusives Fail to Crack the Top Ten

No one cares about Mario Tennis not amiibo Festival (specially the later)

good None of those deserved top 10 except for maybe yo-kai

Not surprised

...Generally speaking, the eighth generation consoles continue to outsell and outpace seventh generation console equivalents in both hardware ...

This isn't true. It is the sales of the Xbox One and PS4 is outpacing the sales of Xbox 360 and the PS3. The sales of the Wii aren't included when industry folks make that statements.

Mario tennis ultra smash is more like a demo with little content and animal crossing amiibo festival is just nothing really more of a rushed unfinished game that looks like a beginning layout of a Mario party. They should of made a core animal crossing game and Mario tennis ultra smash is my least favorite of the series. So this year's holiday season looks like somewhat of 3ds and other non Nintendo games. Still hoping a better year next holiday season!

Nintendo is too busy trying to cash in on those ridiculous "free to start" games. They gave up on releasing games that are good, or games that North Americans really want. Most especially, games like Style Savvy 3 and Disney Magical World 2. Why should anyone waste money on the few bits of things they bring out lately when there's a world of other choices available? I still have a bit of loyalty to Nintendo but since they stopped releasing good games, I just play my old ones, or buy old ones that I had not gotten around to buying before. Stores in my area are all clearancing all their Nintendo stock, especially 3ds games and using that space for other stuff now. Nintendo has finally lost their foothold as a prominent game company. Very sad.

Aw. Too bad.
That's what happens when you don't put your heart into it.

The Wii and Just Dance are still kicking ass!

"It's rather disappointing considering that titles such as Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash, Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival, and Yo-Kai Watch all released in this period, but to be fair, it didn't seem like any of these would necessarily light up the charts."

Really? Did anyone expect, apart from maybe Yo-Kai Watch, that these titles would sell well? They were filler games because Nintendo didn't have Star Fox or Zelda ready for launch.

But hey, they just released Xenoblade Chronicles X. Has there been any advertising for that? I haven't seen any.

Remember during the Wii & DS days, when November and December used to be great months for Nintendo? Now with games like Amiibo Festival and Mario Tennis, it's no wonder sales are bad.

I work in a damn game store and I never personally sold Amiibo Festival or Mario Tennis, and only ever sold 1 Yokai Watch and I was the only one who we knew that got Xenoblade, but it's a constant flood of people for Star Wars, CoD and Fallout. I'm not surprised. Everything crashed and burned.

@Malakai Why wouldn't it be?

Not surprising at all. The U.K. Chart gets so much abuse but games almost never perform better in North America.

HW:

PS4 1.5 million
Xbone: 1.3 million
Wii U 240k

PS4 and Xbone both comfortably sold more this month than Wii U has all year.

These games did not deserve to chart. If Zelda or star fox came out like they were suppose to they would chart. So hopefully next year is better.

@Peach64 yeah that always grinds my gears, when people say that Nintendo should 'drop' the UK market, 'cause they'll never 'succeed' here, then when we see the US' taste in games, what do we have? COD, Madden, Halo, Fallout and Assassin's Creed. This industry isn't rocket science, the big publishers know what sells and are happy to flog it on a yearly (or bi-yearly) basis.

But yeah glad to see that doom-and-gloom reigns here, not that I expected anything else. Anyone got any positive news or are we lamenting the fact that Nintendo stopped releasing good games since oh when was it again, last week when we got two solid 8-9s on the 3DS and Wii U (in the UK at least)?

DOOOOOOMED!!!!! Oh woe is me!

@Luffymcduck I did on cable. Not sure what we had on but was quite surprised.

It's just a drop in the ocean. It will pass

@TheLastLugia Two solid 8-9s you say? Nintendo aren't in the business of selling review scores, they're in the games-business (Supposedly, anyway)

Of course doom and gloom reign here, please point us to the good news that we all apparently overlooked in such a short-sighted manner!

Black Friday was a dud, this year's holiday season is a gaming wasteland for Nintendo, i want to buy Nintendo games (My 3DS could use some exercise), but Nintendo should first, you know, come out with something...

Outside of XCX, which seems to have barely been advertised, everything else that has released lately is pretty much trash by Nintendo's usual standards. So: not surprised.

Does the Wii U even have anything interesting coming out next year other than the as-yet unnamed Legend of Zelda title and that misguided looking Star Fox game?
On the other hand, the 3DS already has a great selection of games due to come out next year.

@Ralizah I remember hearing a rep say they intentionally didn't advertise it because all the people who would buy it already know about it. Same reason why it was made way more in depth and is somewhat 'inaccessible'. To be fair, they're probably right, but I still wonder what it'd be like if they launched an aggressive marketing campaign.

@MitchVogel Thing is, this is the most nonsensical reasoning ever. The whole point of advertising is to draw in people who don't know about your product. Literally, that is the sole purpose of advertising. I don't think Nintendo understands that many, many people don't visit websites like this one, but that doesn't mean they aren't interested.

Look at games like Call of Duty or Assasin's Creed. These games have huge followings, yet every year their advertising campaigns are more and more aggressive. And it works.

I just don't get Nintendo's logic.

@MysticX well yeah, last week I spent £100 on the Xenoblade Chronicles X special edition and Mario and Luigi Paper Jam Bros. I didn't buy a single Nintendo game in November, only buying Star Wars Battlefront on PS4. I don't know what you like (apart from Shante obviously) but I love(d) the previous games from both series and am loving these ones. Am I supposed to be mad about amiibo Festival/ Mario Tennis Ultra Smash? Should I whine about it on forums? Do Nintendo have to make more than £100 off of me for them to be 'good'? Nintendo aren't in a crisis, anywhere near in fact, and as long as that is so, this doom-and-gloom attitude will always baffle me. For a comparison, I bought one Sony exclusive all year- Bloodborne. I know which of the two needs to step up their game for me at least.

These are the games NL and others gave poor scores to. Why would gamers want to buy poor games at high prices.

Nintendo has taken its eye off the ball; let's design games around Amiibos. $$$$$$$$$

@Mogster - completely agree. I did read the same information that @MitchVogel said but that's such a backward way of thinking. Basically, what I believe they are saying is that they don't believe the cost of advertising will be balanced out with sales. The thing is, the XC series is here to stay and the more you build up the fanbase in the beginning the more fans you will get in further iterations and the more successful it will become.

Fallout 4 is an RPG much like XCX and it's advertised all over the place here in the UK and has been selling like hotcakes. Yes it's a western RPG and different to a JRPG, but FF also does well in the west.

Nintendo's logic baffles most of the gaming industry.

@Malakai I also thought that

Just goes to show, even Nintendo can't just stick any old game out and expect people to buy it. This is the first as in a long time that I won't be getting a new game on the 25th Dec. Mario Tennis looks lacking. Amiibo Festival holds no interest to me (and I finally managed to get over my slight amiibo obsession this year!). I only finished Dream Team Bros a few months ago, so Paper Jam Bros looks too similar, too soon. Didn't like the demo of Triforce Heroes and don't have enough time to sink into Xenoblades.

Already anticipating a few games in 2016 though. I'm all in for Fire Emblam and hoping that the extra development time will make Starfox worth the wait. Plus I still have a large games backlog to get through...

@MitchVogel @Mogster @MarvinTheMartian I do believe Nintendo should advertise it, but I know why they won't. CoD and Fallout are popular brands, yes, but are on much healthier consoles, with constant growth. XCX is a niche game on a console with a very tiny install base with very little growth now and in the future. It makes perfect business sense. Why waste effort on a sinking ship, when the newer and improved ship is on the horizon. I know there would be and are more people out there that would love this game, but they can't be convinced to buy a Wii U. Most eyes are on the NX. Don't get me wrong, Nintendo's logic at times is indeed baffling, but in this case, I think it's logic is fairly solid.
Honestly, I don't like it, as I want the XC series to succeed. It's a solid and downright awesome franchise. Business wise though, it makes sense. I won't even be surprised if Starfox Zero only gets a little bit of advertising. I'm sure Nintendo isn't going to push it hard. It doesn't matter how good your advertising is, because it's a hard sell to convince someone to pay 350$ for a system and a when the console has an "expiration date" of about a year (IF the NX does indeed release next year). Nintendo may say otherwise, but the moment the NX is out, the Wii U will most likely be completely dropped.

The only Nintendo console game I got in November was Rodea the Sky Soldier, and I had that pre-ordered and pre-purchased months ago. This month it was just XCX (at least until Christmas comes round and a haul of eShop cards from my brothers will net me Fast Racing Neo and some other titles).

Hopefully Xenoblade sells well. None of these games deserve to be in the top ten. I hope this sends a message to that low quality spinoffs don't sell as well as the real thing. This holiday lineup for Nintendo wasn't up to par.

@Ralizah - Pokken Tournament, SMT x FE and the Twilight Princess remake are the other main games coming out for Wii U in 2016 that we know of.

Probably get 2 or 3 other random Nintendo made retail releases......which would be a decent year if there was any other 3rd party retail support.

The UK always goes with what is popular and Nintendo isn't so popular at the mo.

I've been saying it since E3. Nintendo is on track to have one of their worst Holiday quarters in years. The 3DS is in OK shape, but the Wii U is horribly not ready for the season. They have rely on old games, plus new ones that no one wants.

But yes, yes. Xenoblade is fantastic, but I'm not sure how far it can go.

I have zero interest in Amiibo and games that mostly tend to this new Nintendo trend(AC:Amiibo Festival) and sadly based on Reggie's latest interview it seems this is the new path Nintendo seems to want to head towards.

You cannot expect to see yourself in the top 10 by being abysmal.

I stopped collecting amiibo. I want to spend my money on great games. Your move Nintendo.

Wow ok, let's think about this people. Seeing how the PS4 alone has sold 3 times as many Wii Us, even if everyone that owned a Wii U bought a game, and everyone who had a PS4 bought Fallout, it would still be outnumbered 3 to 1. And not to also mention that these games are also on PC as well, so adding up Xbox, PS, and PC, that's about 5 to 1 at the very least. Yes, these games were for very niche crowds and these games aren't going to move consoles, but to solely blame Nintendo for not topping the charts makes you look silly. All of those chart topping games have been released on multiple platforms, unlike Nintendo exclusives. Just think a little before you go off and make dumb comments on things that you don't understand.

Hrm, Yokai Watch sales are disappointing.

But good to see that Mario Tennis and aF crashed and burned, those titles didn't deserve any better.

@TheLastLuigia now when people say "drop the uk", do they only mean the uk or all of Europe? I'm asking because some people seem to think that Europe is only the UK.

You did it to yourself Nintendo....

I mean...there's nothing to be upset about from where I stand. I'm still enjoying the 3DS and Wii U games I did buy and we all know the only two games that would have hit the chart got delayed. That's fine by me. I'd rather have a functional, full game rather than one rushed out for the Holiday season. On top of that, it's not like this was an easy month to compete against anyway. Against Battlefront, Fallout, and the yearly-releases, the only game that could have feasibly made the chart was Zelda U.

Next year will be better with Star Fox and Zelda U, but I'll still have fun this year because I'll still be playing Splatoon and I'll hopefully get Xenoblade Chronicles X.

What's fascinating here is statistics show (both on paper and in the real world) that female gamers make up the majority of sales for Nintendo platforms, especially 3ds. And they completely abandoned this demographic for 2015-2016. No games for us, no sales. And thus Nintendo crashes and burns. Women are not interested in money-making gimmicks like "free-to-start" games and all these amiibo statues. We want real games. Casual games. But Nintendo quit making those. So, we move on to other things. And probably won't come back. Nintendo is in real financial trouble. And it's only downhill from here.

Good. Release crap, expect crap sales.

Well...what did you expect? With the exception of Xenoblade and Super mario Maker (does that count as a holiday title, or was it too early?), there really aren't any big-holiday titles coming from them this year, and the games they released are just...why!? I expect better from them, dang-it!

@MrGuinea

The comments are justified even with your common sense thrown in. Japan loves Animal Crossing, and even there, amiibo Festival performed dismally. This one isn't hard to figure out. Mario Tennis and amiibo Festival as the holiday lineup is among the worst home console lineups I've seen from Nintendo in years (Xenoblade aside, but that didn't benefit from Black Friday). The comments are restating that point.

We all know of what you pointed out, and its always stated by someone every month whether a Wii U game charts or not. The point is, Nintendo was destined to fail here, and I'm sure deep down, Nintendo knew it too.

The NPD top 10 for November and December almost always consist of big multiplatform games.
It's very rare for an exclusive game to break into the top 10 during those two months.
It's very rare for a Nintendo game to chart during November and December, since 2002.

Just because you don't reach the new NPD top 10, doesn't mean your game sold poorly.
NPD also doesn't count digital sales.

The noteworthy points are:

Halo 4 dropped like a brick
PS4 is now tracking above PS3 in North America
PS4 also reached 30M faster than PS2 did.
Though PS4+Xbox One are selling less than PS3+Xbox 360

@SanderEvers

But SquareEnix, Crystal Dynamics and the Xbox fanboys were all saying this was the best thing for Tomb Raider and it would help 'grow the franchise.' Not my words, theirs. But this went exactly the way I expected and as a fan of the Tomb Raider franchise I am disgusted beyond belief with SE about this. Sell the franchise and give it to a publisher that gives a damn and more importantly isn't completely clueless about the market. Sometimes fans need to be put ahead of everything else.

@Gamer83
Tomb Raider hasn't been popular for a long while, long before Square bought Eidos.

Tomb Raider gameplay no longer appeals to the broader market these days.

The best way to make Tomb Raider popular again is to make it violent and/or a shooter.

The only games that do really well in sales these days on PS and Xbox are AAA Blockbuster games with M-rating and/or shooters.

With that said Rise was profitable, cause Microsoft paid a pretty penny.
The previous game, despite reviewing well, didn't sell enough to be profitable.

Isn't there an error in this article? There's no way they sold 11 million Amiibos in one month, when they had sold 800,000 in October. 11 million must be the grand total, for all time.

@Agent721
Yes.
U.S. Amiibo sales were at ~9M prior to real Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

@MysticX
Man you guys are just a bundle of joy.

Who the heck cares if they released a garbage mini game, they've been doing that for YEARS.

Like some people are just so flustered about a couple cheap did releases, as if that somehow negates all the other good games they release.

Im playing the best JRPG of the generation right now. A game we've been waiting for for almost 3 years. I don't have time to pout over mini game collections. Too busy actually playing good games. The year we get Splatoon, Mario Maker and Xenoblade, and people say Nintendo quit making good games. Stop trolling.

@Kiyata_Hamasaki
I'd actually like to see this evidence on paper that "women make up the majority of sales on Nintendo" because I do find it a little hard to believe given the trends. Nintendo's last demographic update stated something like 80-90% of their Wii U customers were adult males. And I don't think 3DS is drastically different either, aside from some younger gamers.

And I don't think you speak for all women, because most women I know love free to play. And most people I know, male or female, aren't going to "quit and not come back" if they really love video games. Because why would someone deliberately deprive themselves of great games. Just out of spite? No. I don't think so.

I'm not surprised, all the games but Halo 5 (8th) are lumped together on 2-6 other systems, while Nintendo games is on one. With PC part of the platform, the install base is almost limitless.

Btw I'm not what channel some of the commenters normally watch, but ads for Xenoblade Chronicles X show every other commercial break on Adult Swim (Cartoon Network at night) which makes sense given the target audience of the shows and game.

At this point, the only way Nintendo can reverse it's fortunes is to give up on making game consoles. Maybe stick it out with a portable for another generation, but the downward trend of the company continues unabated. Even the fluke high sales of the Wii did not prevent the Wii U from continuing a 30-year downward trend, where Nintendo peaked in console sales with the NES.

It's time to go third party. There are a lot of people who would love to have Zelda and Mario on PS4 and/or Steam, but increasingly, people are unwilling to pay for otherwise useless consoles just for a couple Nintendo games.

Also, it's actually rather sad that Nintendo has sold more plastic toys than Wii U consoles. At this point, anyone considering the Wii U anything other than a failure is delusional, sorry to say.

@Yorumi
Ya, XCX is one of the few JRPG's that's actually good enough, and has enough western appeal, to rival a game like Final Fantasy. Games like that don't come often, but Nintendo seems to believe word of mouth is good enough.

And while yes, word of mouth CAN lead to sales fire sometimes, more times than not it takes good old fashion advertising. Make the game look cool (isn't hard to do). It's a shame because it deserves to be played by a lot more people.

EDIT*** The other part of the problem is the same problem that 3rd parties deal with. The actual fanbase- the ones you would expect to at least be able to count on to support good games- they're so fickle they hesitate buying ANYTHING that isn't a staple Nintendo franchise. "Ya Idk, it's averaged an 85/100 but, this one fruit stand employee wrote a divisive review" or "unless it gets a demo I'll be skipping it" or "just not sure it would be fun, just run here, run there, so boring".

Ya know, the "I'll find any excuse I can to not buy the greatest Wii U game ever released" syndrome

@Quorthon To be perfectly honest, it's time for both Nintendo and Microsoft to go third party.

@Yorumi I don't know, Adult Swim usually gets viewers that are usually between the age of 18-34 and it highly ranked. There is quite a few articles that back that up. Also it starts at 8pm now.

I understand getting the product recognized to many people but it more productive if you target the people that have or might have an interest to buy it. It's true the people I know don't have the game don't know XCX, but in all fairness their interest and knowledge in games goes as far as Mario (more so the old ones), Wii Sports, CoD and GTA.

It funny, as I was typing this a commercial for the new 3ds xl showing off Pokemon SMD, Triforce Heroes, and Super Smash bros show on TBS, right around Family Guy.

@Yorumi Yeah, I'm more bitter when Nintendo don't try to reach certain (sometimes any) media when it comes to some of their games. I still can't forgot about Codename S.T.E.A.M. They advertise a lot online on Game Sites but that's it, no TV ads. Not even when it would be make creative such as President day, 4th of July, Showing the uses for amiibo (that might be risky given the rarity of all the FE amiibo), and this season showing off the use of the new 3ds xl. Even Xenoblade Chronicle 3ds, and LoZ:MM got airtime on that. The Wonderful 101 is worse with airtime.

All this XCX talk and I still haven't played the SE copy I got from target.com yet. Guess this weekend is a good starting point.

@Xenocity Are you serious? Check out the Wii & DS era.

@electrolite77 I missed read thought it was the UK charts lol its not been the best Xmas line up from Nintendo apart Xenoblade Chronicles X being one of the best games this year maybe ever too some people.

XCX: December release.
Yokai Watch: Pokemon lite.
Mario Tennis: overpriced and shallow.
Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival.. Should have been FREE.
Neither Nintendo system has had 2 good games release the same month in YEARS. The same month!
Microsoft and Sony are having sales issues because they have too many good games on the same day, the same week!
When there are no options, what does Nintendo expect?
Any indie games I was looking forward to are out and cheaper literally anywhere else.
Oh and don't let the retail numbers fool you. These games also lit up the digital marketplace.
Time for Nintendo to go 3rd (or 2nd) party. Cause let's be frank, that's the only time Nintendo and 3rd party will be uttered again. When the Wii sells more games than your current systems, 3 years after it's 'done', it's time to call it a day.

@Xenocity The Tomb Raider reboot initially didn't sell well. But there's a reason outside of a short developmental schedule that Definitive Edition came out: eventually, the sales picked up. To the tune of 8-9 million sales. And now more with the updated versions. Rise tanked because of the competition against it. Not because it isn't appealing. It's simply not Fallout 4. Or Halo 5. Or Call of Duty. My brother bought an X1 for CoD: Blops 3. Then he got Advanced Warfare and he's hardly an exception.
It's the same reason FIFA sells consoles in the UK.
It's young gamers, wanting to experience Michael Bay, Fast and the Furious, Expendables type adrenaline. Once the hype train dies down, Rise will pick up. Because it's a good game worth playing after the heavy hitters have run this course. It might take the PS4 to get it done, but it'll pick up, just like the last one did.

A generally bleak picture is painted here, but let us not forget that of these entries, only one has been a breakout hit: to date, the Yokai Watch series has sold over 10 million units worldwide.

It didn't do particularly well in the November NPD, because it's SUCH a Japanese title, and... of course... Nintendo continues to exhibit their uncanny ability to produce ALMOST NO MARKETING WHATSOEVER.

We have no way of knowing the digital sales publicly (unless companies reveal the information, which is usually unlikely), but it is certain that Nintendo continues to drop the ball on their marketing. Their poor retail performance has many factors, but it all goes back to Nintendo's current unwillingness to do much of anything before their eventual NX blitz begins. It's as if they've given up on the 8th generation of consoles already.

@Yorumi I agree, Nintendo had a good opportunity to draw core gamers (and RPG fans) to Wii U with Xenoblade X, but unfortunately, they characteristically dropped the ball once again. At this point, they've dropped the ball so many times in this 8th generation of consoles that they may as well be dribbling it up and down on purpose. I hope Nintendo sheds this self-deprecating pattern with NX, or it may yet end them.