Nintendo estimates $33 million earned from Virtual Console

56 Comments by Ludwig Kietzmann Nov 28th 2007 5:45PM
Filed under: Nintendo Wii, Business

Fielding questions at a Tokyo press conference held by Nintendo and NTT regarding an internet service collaboration, Nintendo executive Shinji Hatano provided some rather vague commentary on the success of Wii's Virtual Console. According to IGN's Anoop Gantayat, the executive noted a previously mentioned figure of 7.8 million downloads across the service, with purchases generating 3.5 billion yen -- or approximately $32.33 million.

Perhaps there was a hint of sarcasm then, when Hatano followed up with, "We're currently unsure if this is a lot or low. They're not bad figures." Really? Earning over thirty million dollars from games you approved years ago seems like it's a reasonable payoff for minimal effort, doubly so when said (overpriced) games include Double Dribble.

Tags: Numbers, VC, Virtual-Console, VirtualConsole

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(Page 1) Reader Comments

kinshadow: Nov 28th 2007; 5:50PM

SUCKERS!

Lemmiwinks: Nov 28th 2007; 6:27PM

Head fake! Head fake!

Head fake!

Lemmiwinks: Nov 28th 2007; 6:28PM

yeah, that one was for gonk...

gonk: Nov 28th 2007; 5:53PM

do they have nba jam on it?

best basketball game ever. HE'S ON FIRE!!!

WiNG: Nov 28th 2007; 6:00PM

No, they don't, probably because it would be a licensing nightmare.

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School): Nov 28th 2007; 6:01PM

They got Tecmo Bowl. It wasn't a licensing nightmare because they removed the team and player names.

Course, NBA jam wouldn't be the same if you couldn't BE Michael Jordan.

Obie: Nov 28th 2007; 6:11PM

Boomshakalaka!

gonk: Nov 28th 2007; 6:23PM

FROM DOWNTOWN!

Koopaknight29 - (Nintendo Loyalist): Nov 28th 2007; 6:37PM

*Cameras flash in the background as Jordan does a flawless spinning dunk, shattering the backboard in the process*

Ah, those were the days. Too bad I always ended up as Scotty Pippin...

Jonathan Tran: Nov 28th 2007; 7:46PM

it wouldn't be the same if you couldn't be BILL CLINTON

Marlos Hill: Nov 28th 2007; 8:00PM

too bad michael jordan isnt in nba jam

colin: Nov 28th 2007; 10:43PM

"Harper!"

I really want a new NBA Jam

DonWii: Nov 28th 2007; 5:56PM

Are 7.8M downloads good? Money-wise, of course.

But, how does that stack up with Xbox Live?

Spartacus: Nov 28th 2007; 8:02PM

They suck considering Major Nelson announced over 10 million downloads from Xbox LIVE only four months after the 360 launched:

http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/sep/EEuFFupAllYVaAkwGu.php

As of March 2007 there have been over 135 million downloads and 5 BILLION MS points purchased, which equates to 625 million USD:

http://kotaku.com/gaming/xbox-live/terrifying-xbox-live-stats-breakdown-242048.php

I'd say with another 6 months since that update, the numbers are even more ridiculous now.

ck: Nov 28th 2007; 8:15PM

while it definitely doesn't stack up to XBLA, MS has invested a lot into the service AND has a LOT more content.

Nintendo, meanwhile, just puts out old games on a simple pay service online. Not much investment and not much variety for downloads.

So comparing the two is really just wrong.

rv: Nov 28th 2007; 10:07PM

625 million??? woahhhh

bm: Nov 29th 2007; 8:36AM

"not much variety for downloads."

That's nonsense, just because most of them are 2D doesn't mean there is no variety. A large variety of genres existed on the SNES too, you know. And for now, the VC is the only console download service with commercially developed full-length RPG and adventure experiences as OoT, Super Mario 64 and Breath of Fire 2 (which, if I may be frank, beat the pants off two thirds of all the modern crap coming out today). And just because you've already played them doesn't mean everybody has. On the contrary, especially with so many gamers under the age of 20.

arrrgh: Nov 29th 2007; 1:12PM

yeah i love how on live you can get games from genesis, tg 16, neo geo, snes, nes, n64....OH WAIT

WiNG: Nov 28th 2007; 6:01PM

I would have figured it was higher than than, but okay.

Obie: Nov 28th 2007; 6:01PM

Congrats Nintendo, want more of my money? Then gimme
Super Mario Kart, Starfox, Pilotwings and Super Punch out..do we have a deal?

DemonGSides: Nov 28th 2007; 6:08PM

I'd shit bricks and buy a Wii the same day Starfox came out on it.

kinshadow: Nov 28th 2007; 6:19PM

You'd have better odds shitting the bricks than finding a Wii to buy.

gonk: Nov 28th 2007; 6:24PM

don't talk about shitting bricks, i just did a few weeks ago, it felt like i was giving birth

:(

reppy: Nov 28th 2007; 6:05PM

Are you kidding me? Trashing on Double Dribble? To this day that game remains one of my favorite basketball games of all time.

SoulBlade: Nov 28th 2007; 6:28PM

Mine too!

... but I don't think I'd pay for it.

Lemmiwinks: Nov 28th 2007; 6:30PM

The sound DD makes when you do a slam dunk is one of the coolest sound effects in gaming, evar!

reppy: Nov 28th 2007; 6:38PM

I agree entirely LemmiWinks. Me and my friend were playing it a few months ago and every time we'd get a slam dunk we could not help but laugh our asses off. It was amazing.

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School): Nov 28th 2007; 6:06PM

Yeah, they probably aren't sure if 33 million is "good" because they've never had a download service before, and similar industry services don't have the kind of library or pricing the VC does.

33 million is alot of money, to be sure, but next year they might make 70 million on VC, and we'd look back and say "that first year wasn't that great after all".

Beowulf: Nov 28th 2007; 6:15PM

I think the remark about whether or not this is high or low probably comes from whether or not it is a case of 'many wii owners buying few VC games' or 'few wii owner buying lots of VC games'. In terms of statistics it means that roughly only 0.7 VC games are getting sold per Wii unit currently out there. Considering the large amount of titles already out on VC, that is actually a really shoddy number. They need to figure out why that is yet in correlation to the numbers of how many Wii units have actually been used online. If out of the 10+ million wii units sold 70% or more have gone online, then each one of those 70% Wii owners has bought only ONE VC game. That is horrible. However, if less than 70% of wii owners have gone online, then the adoption rate gets slightly better. Either way, it's not that good a prognosis for VC. Which is WHY they're putting out call centers to see if it is a matter of people not getting their wiis online to use VC or if there simply little interest in VC at all.

Ludwig Kietzmann: Nov 28th 2007; 6:28PM

That's a very good point, but it depends on what their expectations were. From their end, providing the service is fairly simple and cost-effective -- how much would they need to sell per Wii before the return is considered great? I think even one download per Wii (considering how many systems are out there) would be enough to consider it a success. I'd love to see some more concrete numbers.

Beowulf: Nov 28th 2007; 7:36PM

True, it oughta be fairly cheap for them. It's a pity not much more about the actual VC process is known. Like, how easy is it for them to sort out the licensing on old titles (seems some issues do arise like the Golden Eye issue as well as Chrono Trigger which SquareEnix needs to sort out with individual creators involved)? We know about StarFox 64 and Mario Kart 64 getting some patching post-release; is there further emulation tweaking going on behind the scenes?
But yeah, Nintendo loves maximized profit in every venue and what they're probably looking at is not only financial revenue but also VC adoption per costumer. I'm fairly certain only the creme of the crop of VC titles is finding a home and some of those lesser, more obscure titles, considering only 7.3 million titles have been downloaded and a huge chunk of that can be attributed to Super Mario Bros. alone. Nintendo loves on-going reinvention this time around. I'm fairly certain that whereas XBox Live Arcade is self-congratulatory over every single title sold, Nintendo is gonna try to make an appeal to the costumer to see more VC titles by rethinking their incentives. I'd love to see a flat rate for VC titles instead of having to pay per game. If 0.7 Adoption Rate is all their gonna get as it is, there wouldn't be much of a loss but probably increased demand across the board due to simplicity.

Fernando Rocker: Nov 28th 2007; 6:16PM

I'm looking for Super Mario RPG...

Idontknowanymore: Nov 28th 2007; 6:19PM

Thats less then 1 download for every Wii purchased. Those numbers really aren't that good consider numerous people have bought numerous games. My guess is that maybe 20% of owners have even used the service.

tmacairjordan87: Nov 28th 2007; 6:27PM

i'm known for hating the wii, but if they released super mario RPG from square-enix (squaresoft back in those days) on the VC, i would buy a wii.

Nigeria: Nov 28th 2007; 6:29PM

We need more Kirby games!

Kirby for president, Jack.

Undead Priest: Nov 28th 2007; 6:44PM

Super Mario RPG won't be up until Square-Enix gives the OK for it. Square-Enix is currently not supporting the VC. From what I remember, it's because they believe Nintendo isn't charging enough for games. Which is absurd.

Personally, I believe VC prices are mostly fair, at least for the quality titles.

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School): Nov 29th 2007; 11:24AM

Act Raiser is from square-enix. Its on the VC.

But an above poster might have a point: the creators of most of the classic square RPGs no longer work for Square (Sakaguchi is Mistwalker). Depending on how creative rights were distributed upon creation could be holding up Square titles on the VC.

nick: Nov 28th 2007; 7:02PM

Just as a point of reference...

VGChartz has estimated that Xbox Live Arcade has generated about 139,000,000 in revenue to date

Russ Carroll: Nov 28th 2007; 7:56PM

Revenue figures for Xbox include Marketplace, which of course has movies and add-on content. XBLA numbers haven't been reported since March of 2006 (600,000 sales at the time). The Wii is old games. It's an interesting comparison, but even if you had the numbers it's apples to oranges.

nick: Nov 28th 2007; 8:45PM

No, this was a compliation of just XBLA games only

http://tinyurl.com/29pp8x

Damien: Nov 28th 2007; 7:24PM

"Course, NBA jam wouldn't be the same if you couldn't BE Michael Jordan."

Actually, it would be EXACTLY the same!!

B1gC72: Nov 28th 2007; 7:52PM

hell $30 million of almost pure profit? how can they not be sure if those are good figures? its $30 million off of games that they've ALREADY made millions off of in previous years. its like the cash cow died and they had a seance to bring it back to life.

Spartacus: Nov 28th 2007; 8:12PM

As I mentioned above, though this is pretty much pure profit for Nintendo, LIVE is kicking the crap out them in terms of content and revenue.

As of March of this year (6 months ago), LIVE's stats were at over 135 million downloads and over 5 billion MS points purchased, which is about $625 million US dollars. So in comparison:

Nintendo VC: 7.8 million downloads / $33 million
Xbox LIVE: > 135 million downloads / > $625 million

Karen: Nov 28th 2007; 8:53PM

Microsoft may be bring in the revenue but I can't see how with the costs of the market place and teh amount of free content they are making profit. Also comparing Market Place to Virtual console doesn't work, you'd need to compare paid for Xbox live arcade content to Virual Console to have a competitive comparison.

Spartacus: Nov 28th 2007; 9:41PM

Karen,

Ok, according to 6 month old stats, Xbox LIVE Arcade games have totalled over 25 million downloads (full, not trial).

So again, LIVE is kicking the crap out of VC with probably at least 4x more downloads at this point. Of course it helps that for the same cost as a 20 year old ROM on VC, you can buy a NEW game on LIVE Arcade...

Karen: Nov 29th 2007; 8:03AM

Personally I could care less who winning "the console war", I like fun games. I was just looking at your comparison and seeing hole's in it.
That is a better competitive comparison now. Both could probably sell more if they start advertise the Live Arcade/Virtual Console, I haven't seen one TV commercial for either.

Gavin: Nov 28th 2007; 8:14PM

The VC prices are a total rip-off.

/end of line

nick: Nov 28th 2007; 8:22PM

33 million bucks is extremely low. Sure its free money, but they are missing out on a major market. If they priced the games at 2 bucks a piece, they'd have sold a billion dollars worth by now.

I own like 100 iTunes songs. I own zero virtual console games. Just like iTunes has to compete with free mp3s, Nintendo has to compete with free emulators. 10 bucks for an old crappy game is not going to cut it. 1 bucks for NES, 2 bucks for snes and they'd actually be making some sales.

James: Nov 28th 2007; 8:48PM

I'm putting off my VC purchases till they give us the Nintendo Stars=Wii Points conversion thing. I've got 9k points on that thing, and 3 more Wii games to add! I'll be sorted for a long time.

Got 2 pages full of VC games. I'm only getting games I always wanted to play (Super Metroid) and my fave previous owned games.

Cuja: Nov 28th 2007; 10:52PM

They're not trashing anybody with them numbers. We're talking games 3 or 4 gens ago. Why are they nickle diming us on VC? Less than a half a dozen releases a week. Their whole library of NES and SNES are already emulated. N64 emus are running on a third of the releases. Expect Nintendo to continue on dragging their heels. MS will add 84 titles to BC this next update. They make it seem so easy to do. And shortly original Xbox games will be made available for download. No comment for the PS3.

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