14 DAY TRIAL // Nintendo has revealed that the latest installments in the Super Smash Bros. and Pokemon franchises have managed to sell an aggregate of 20 million units since their release in 2014.
It looks like Nintendo is making a pretty strong comeback, showing some solid financial results and sales figures, and its significant turnaround might mark the Japanese company's first full profitable year since 2011, during the crazy times of the Wii console.
The Nintendo Wii U has been completely outclassed by the Xbox One home console from Microsoft and the PlayStation 4 home entertainment system from Sony. In spite of having been released a full year ahead, Wii U sales have been lackluster at best, and now the console is no longer a factor in most AAA releases.
The 3DS has its own woes, being outclassed and outgunned by the effervescent surge of mobile gaming, being increasingly a niche product of a time long past, and only really popular in Japan, where it still dominates the hardware and software charts.
However bad the support for and from third-party titles might be, it seems that the Wii U and its little brother, the Nintendo 3DS handheld gaming device, are doing pretty well on their own.
Nintendo's big franchises have performed very well so far
Nintendo has released the financial report for the first quarter of 2015, revealing that Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS is currently sitting at a whopping 6.75 million sold, while its Wii U counterpart has managed to score 3.75 million sales since its launch in November 2014.
Furthermore, Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, the full remakes of the classic GameBoy Advance hits, have also sold very, very well, being adopted by 9.94 million gamers since their release in October 2014.
The Japanese corporation has also revealed that Mario Kart 8 is sitting at 5.1 million copies sold to date, and that the remastered edition of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask has sold 2.03 million copies during the short time it's been on sale on the 3DS.
Things are looking up, and with the upcoming The Legend of Zelda game for the Wii U and the mystery hardware dubbed Nintendo NX to unveil, the Big N seems to be back on track, after its prolonged fall from glory.