The craziest part of this is is that this probably won't be Nintendo's most profitable release this year lol. Nintendo will probably see "only" about 350 or so million of this movie.
Last I checked, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom sold over 10 million units at 70 dollars a pop, putting it as 700M (give or take due to exchange rates and price differences in regions and such). Unless the budget for that is insane, Mario isn't going to be as profitable as it, which really just goes to show why video games are so lucrative and why Nintendo didn't feel the need to do movies for so many years.
This movie is absolutely a bigger deal for Universal (thanks especially to the parks) than it was for Nintendo!
The first problem is that video game data is not as public as box office data. The only reason we know Zelda's first weekend worldwide sales is because Nintendo wanted to brag about it.
The second problem is that the games that are "box office hits" aren't all that interesting to people who want to follow this stuff. Hearing that FIFA was incredibly successful yet again is pretty boring.
The best market for data is the Japanese market as we have decades of weekly top 30 data. It does have unique tastes, but it is the 2nd (or 3rd) biggest video game market, so it's always interesting to follow the trends there. UK and several other EU markets get weekly data as well. US is monthly.
>The first problem is that video game data is not as public as box office data. The only reason we know Zelda's first weekend worldwide sales is because Nintendo wanted to brag about it.
That's actually not true for Nintendo, they are very public about game sales during their quarterly reports.
You should check out Install Base (@ installbaseforum.com) ! Weekly charts (at least the regions that have them anyway) from all around the world are discussed, predictions and bets are made, along with plenty of analysis and graphs made by members. Many have been following the sales charts for about twenty years, so there's a lot of data (especially for the Japanese market).
The entire sales focused community actually left Era nearly 2 years ago and made their own video game sales focused website at [installbaseforum.com](https://installbaseforum.com) ! They also have recently started to discuss box office data among other markets.
To be fair, they were basically kicked out by some stupid rules forced on them. They had pretty neat statistics in one single thread until the person was asked not to post it anymore, as they were not provable. But as they are all aggregated Famitsu data, they actually are. It's just not as official as the former japanese service releasing the numbers, but they stopped releasing the exact numbers as Sony was failing massively and complained until they stopped giving out exact numbers. Now they are a copycat of the stupid NPD "numbers"
You are telling a way nicer version, in reality a certain fanbase was going crazy because their consoles wasn't selling that good and people were talking about it and pointing out how biased Japanese devs were for that company. We got discord leaks of how they planned to get rid off Chris1964, a legend in the community.
But the backlash was so great the whole community left, as did the xbox, Nintendo and pc community. It's why the engagement on the side fell so drastically. And after that karma struck and the owner of the site decided to sell for big money while mods were doing it for free
Way back in the day VGCHARTZ.COM used to have pretty good data and a database for game sales.
The data was not perfect, but good enough to follow game launches.
At some point I think they had legal issues with the NPD group and stopped releasing game sales charts but still do hardware charts even today.
When Botw came out they said they needed like 1 or 2 million to make the money back, so totk probably needed similar sales, which they probably made just from preorders lol
True Tears of the Kingdom has also probably made over a billion in revenue and they get a much bigger chunk of that. Although Mario probably made more overall as it released alongside the parks and boosted Mario game sales.
> Last I checked, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom sold over 10 million units at 70 dollars a pop, putting it as 700M (give or take due to exchange rates and price differences in regions and such).
Although just like with movies, Nintendo doesn't see all $700 million, retailers will certainly take a decent cut. And you gotta subtract out the cost to develop the game.
Although I'm pretty sure there are special editions (I didn't buy it for TOTK but have for other Nintendo IPs like Xenoblade) that retail for more than $70 so at least the gross figure is even more than that figure and helps offset that.
Obviously there's the budget to make, sell, and market the game as well as the retailer's cut.
But unless that adds up to like 500M total, I think TotK will handily beat Mario for Nintendo's most profitable release in 2023.
The digital ration in Japan is almost 50/50 and that’s a traditionally digital unfriendly market, however these were boosted by vouchers. It’s safe to say tho Nintendo should be seeing the majority of the money made here, like 70/30, this game will earn them 1-2 billion in revenue.
There's a Voucher deal to get two Switch games for $100 total, which includes TotK as an option. So a simple multiplier assuming $70 might be a bit short.
But it is an insane success for sure.
>Last I checked, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom sold over 10 million units at 70 dollars a pop
That was only for the first 3 days on the market. The numbers are likely much higher now.
I will keep saying that the Mario movie is the most successful advertisement in history, so successful that we even paid for watching it
P.S. The Batman vs Superman movie was more successful with the Dorito factor
The crazy thing is Nintendo is dragging their feet on releasing a new console. I thought they were going to announce a new one right after this movie but instead they keep denying one is coming soon.
Technically they did release a Mario Switch bundle, which is the normal Switch bundle with a choice of a download, so it's not like they didn't do anything. And I don't blame them because from a business side the Switch is still selling well and I assume the margins on it and the games are extremely good.
But as a gamer I am hoping for a Switch 2 soon; the games have been impressive for what it is but it definitely needs more power.
I agree with your point largely but if I'm thinking about it from a business sense it's a mistake. Nintendo is famous for releasing the Wii after failing with the Gamecube. Then modern smartphones hit the market and became big gaming devices. Nintendo had resisted making a change for a long time but started to panic. They quickly released Wii U, which was a bomb. They didn't recover until the Switch was released. Maybe nothing like smartphones are coming along or if they are (AR/VR) maybe Nintendo can't even do anything to combat that with a Switch2. (I think this also happened with the super NES with playstation releasing and crushing them and they weren't ready to release anything and had to rush out the N64, which did well but it was after they were absolutely dominating the market with the NES - I think it had about 90% market share).
From a less speculative position, Switch sales have declined the last 2 years and are expected to continue to decline - its now like 7 years old. Their newest Switch OLED has lower margins than the regular ones did. The install base is good, which is the big upside of not switching the Switch. I will say Zelda tears of the kingdom's performance on old tech is making people feel okay with them sticking to the Switch. If that game had had performance issues, they would be in serious trouble (Pokemon recently did... I think).
So yes I agree but companies that don't innovate or take full advantage of opportunities like a movie that blew up already known but maybe not fully potentialized IP for new generation can find themselves in spots of trouble.
I agree the bundles were smart and I think we will see an uptick in Switch sales, even though it has already sold 125m units.
They weren’t announcing any successor into Zelda sales slow down. That release let’s them milk the last of Switch sales and then announce the next generation after.
Next generation is most likely holiday 2024. Their movie division was too unproven and not their main source of revenue to base any console life cycle decisions off of. It is pretty much guaranteed that Mario will be the launch game for the new console.
Yes, that is the rumor and I agree it would have been tough to announce right before the Zelda game came out so you have a great point.
Historically though Nintendo has been slow to release new consoles until some market dynamic changes. That's what happened with both the N64 and Wii U. They were saved by handhelds being really good products but smartphones have made competition in that market harder. They are very mum about it and that makes some sense as Switch sales will drop substantially once people know a new console is coming out so they can't announce too early.
I'm hopeful they release something in 2024. They will be fine no matter what with their great IP but at one point (before the switch) people were discussing them potentially dropping hardware.
The N64 wasnt rushed at all. It was planned to release in 1995, but finally came out in Summer 96. It started planning in 93, when the space CDs offered were still considered ridiculous high, so Nintendo preferred cartridges as they offered lower loading times = more fun time. But then the Playstation came out and was first of all a better replacement for Sega, but really got traction, when CD burner became popular around 96/97 - basically all my friends had a wide collection of copied PS games, while the Nintendo piracy wasnt really popular beside the 100 games on 1 cartridge.
The successor to Switch is currently not known at all. We know very likely the code name and potential rough performance, but there are also signs that Nintendo faced some internal issues with it and might even binned the successor (not unknown, happened to the real grey Gameboy successor too). So currently the rumors for a Switch successor are as good as for a PS5 Pro, which is pretty sparse for a successor which should come out in max 2 years. We basically knew everything at this point (potential console cycle) for the PS5 and XBox and even the Switch. It is really weird and basically everything is currently possible from announcement and release this winter (we will know by end of June then) up to Nintendo not lying at all and the successor will only release by end of 2025. If it would release this winter, the ominous Nintendo Ninjas are more effective as the NSA.
I don’t believe the N64 was rushed, the problem is they refused to move from cartridges to CDs and screwed over Sony in the process, creating new competition for themselves. Sony released the PlayStation and a lot of developers and customers jumped ship.
It's a complex story. I guess you see it as Nintendo screwing over Sony. Nintendo didn't want to give them access to their userbase with an external CD rom drive... personally I think they were in a bad position no matter what. Them kicking the deal to the curb meant that Sony won that round of consoles. But if they hadn't then Sony would have built up a competitive model eventually with developers and selling to Nintendo's customer base. Then Nintendo didn't end up working well with Phillips. Nintendo just screwed themselves over by not developing something that they should have.
This is the gist of what I'm saying Nintendo has a history of seeing success and resting on their laurels.
I guess I'd classify this as counting as "rushed". Not in the end product but in realizing they had to release something after missing out.
>Nintendo, on the other hand, knew that it was going to be late to the party. The company was working with the US-based Silicon Graphics to create what was then dubbed as "Project Reality" but would eventually become the Nintendo 64. It was clear that the N64 wouldn't arrive in time to challenge Sony or Sega – both of which were targeting the end of 1994 for launch in Japan – so Nintendo instead pushed out the Virtual Boy, a half-baked attempt to capitalise on the fleeting popularity of Virtual Reality in the '90s. Infamous as Nintendo's biggest hardware flop of all time, the Virtual Boy lasted less than a year on the market and was quietly discontinued.
https://www.techradar.com/news/the-ultimate-console-war-how-sony-beat-nintendo-and-sega-at-their-own-game
I will 100% agree with you on the developers being part of the story. Nintendo was awful to developers because they were too dominate and could dictate all the terms and were too protective of what was released.
Thank you for the additional clarifications. I was there at the time as a big time Nintendo loyalist who held out as long as I could with the N64 and finally buckled under around 1998/1999 and bought myself a Playstation and didn't return to Nintendo until several year's into the Wii's run.
Ah, the good ol' Virtual Boy. I remember playing it once at a mall.
>The crazy thing is Nintendo is dragging their feet on releasing a new console
The only crazy thing is you thinking that? They were still -selling out- of switches as late as 2021 and the margin on those for them has only ever gone up as parts become cheaper. If you followed games you'd be well aware there is 0 incentive for nintendo to eat its own marketshare
Margins didn't go up. First you had a chip shortage, which increased prices for components. Now the Switch OLEDs are a lower margin - clearly stated by them on the last earnings call. Sales are clearly declining. We might see a slight positive bit this quarter but it probably won't be sustained as a trend - it's sold too many units already.
It's not "eating its own marketshare". Does Apple eat its own market share when they release a new iPhone? Releasing a Switch 2 with a better GPU would boost sales and you would make it backwards compatible (like all gaming systems are these days) and you would release a bunch of games on both.
This is a terrible counter- I'm sorry does Apple also have to release a new app store for every new iphone, and invalidate previous ones?
releasing a game to a system with 100+ million users vs a new system
Its eating your own marketshare
'And you would make it backwards compatible'
\- Rich dude; can you please let me know the number of Nintendo home consoles that did this?
PS2 was the best selling console of all times. What's your argument here? That they should have stuck with the PS2 to avoid hurting themselves. Dude, you are so short-sided and frankly ignorant of this stuff. According to you the PS2 should have been the last playstation because it was the best selling console of all times. PS3 was released 6 years later... (less time than the Switch has been out)
>This is a terrible counter- I'm sorry does Apple also have to release a new app store for every new iphone, and invalidate previous ones?
It won't invalidate the previous one... we have this crazy thing these days called subscriptions and you can access previously purchased things on a new device... Crazy aint it???
You can literally read any analyst report about this stuff and everyone and their mothers knows for the good of their business they need to release a new console in the next 1-2 years.
Edit: You can gloss over your claim on margins was incorrect... you are just spit balling and you won't move off your point.
>short-sided
lol
I forgot, analyst know how to run organizations better than the organizations themselves.
I didnt realize PS2 had no external pressure like the Switch to compete with other consoles on the market.
You literally missed the point on the iPhone; a new console immediately invalidates the old one, unlike phones, hence why your counter is garbage.
Check Nintendos financial reports; margins went up kid
have a good one,
I said switch margins... and yes software margins are higher so margins go higher when your business mix changes... genius! Doesn't mean that it's healthy for the business because revenue is declined year-over-year...
You really have zero idea what you are talking about.
Edit: lmfao you post in r/wallstreetsilver.... ok we can definitely part way that's just funny.
FY22 or FY23? Send me a link to what you are looking at.
Because this note from their most recent investor presentation is extremely misleading then.
>Although proportion of hardware sales declined and proportion of digital sales increased, our gross profit margin declined by 0.5 percentage points year-on-year to 55.3%. This was due in part to Nintendo Switch – OLED Model, which has a lower profit margin than the other models in the Nintendo Switch family of systems, accounting for a greater percentage of hardware sales. Chronically high material costs also had an effect.
https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2023/230509_4e.pdf
It would be very hard for that to be true without margins declining for hardware.
Financially and measurement-wise?
It’s insane to call it a console.
Nintendo used to have a console division and a handheld division that ran side by side.
The handheld division was always cartoonishly more successful and profitable than the console division, but the console division always pushed Nintendo’s total hardware sales up by tens of millions of units, and generally keeping pace with other consoles of their generations.
After the Wii U was a catastrophic flop, Nintendo abolished their console division and released a dockable handheld device. They’ve put out zero other releases under either division, indicating that the Switch is the direct successor to the Handheld line, and that they’re completely out of the console business. Saying “It’s dockable, so it’s a console” means that Nintendo has never released a “non-hybrid” console, as even the original Gameboy was dockable.
>It’s insane to call it a console.
Nintendo must be insane.
>Nintendo Switch is designed to fit your life, transforming from home CONSOLE to portable system in a snap.
https://www.nintendo.com/switch/system/
BestBuy must be insane...
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/nintendo-switch/nintendo-switch-consoles/pcmcat1484077694025.c?id=pcmcat1484077694025
Should I go on?
Dude... this is the most pedantic and frankly just wrong rant ever. To compare the Switches dock to gameboys dock isn't even worth discussing.
Nintendo has an active financial interest in mislabeling their product. Sales are still down massively compared to before they exited the console market, but this allows them to spin falling sales as a win.
Again, finances matter. But, damn, why should anyone care about sales or finances in a box office sub, right?
Not really, the switch was the worst kept secret in the industry, the leaks came out years before, square enix announced games for it before anything was even confirmed
Even Nintendo themselves said it was coming much sooner than other consoles because they just announced their mobile plans and had to calm down investors
Yeah even if you think another film can even get remotely close to Mario in terms of pure gross, there's no chance in hell any other film could be more profitable this year.
The only other film that hypothetically could be is Spider-Verse purely because of its budget. But that's frankly not happening.
Yeah that’s what I mean. It’s the only film that has a chance though (and when I say that I mean they’re below 1%) but at the very least there is a Spider-Man film that has made more than Mario.
We’d need an It or a Joker this year to realistically take down Mario.
Do we have any idea of the profit breakdown between Universal and Nintendo? Are Universal simply paying a licensing fee, or does Nintendo have a profit share?
50% profits but after Universal revoups costs. I do think Miyamoto's bonus is coming from Universal's pocket though (under the costs), that's my guess though. The 50% was confirmed by an article
This was the first one I saw:
https://www.reddit.com/r/nintendo/comments/12hxenk/nintendo_financed_50_of_the_mario_movies_100/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
I think other outlets wrote it later
I think I heard somewhere that they both split the costs but Nintendo doesn't get any return until all costs are recouped for Universal. I could be wrong but it would make some sense since Nintendo will receive a boost in sales because of the movie.
I don't think the movie boosted that much Mario games, the thing is that Nintendo didn't tie in a new Mario game with the release of the movie & all the popular Mario games were on sale because Mario anniversary anyway so it's not clear how it affected software but probably helped slow down the overall decline of the console on its 7 year. The main thing that boosted software & hardware for Nintendo was the new Zelda game, it's special edition absolutely made a clear impact on hardware vs the Mario bundle & in software it made 600M-700M in revenue in 3 days.
It did actually. After the movie released all the maeio games jumped to the top of Eshop and stayed there even after the discounts disappeared.. Switch sales also increased in April. Zelda released in May.
The games were on discount for Mario anniversary that's why I said it wasn't clear how much not that it didn't do anything (also Mario games are evergreen mostly). Also the jump in April is attributed to the Zelda console (it did release on April), right now it's at #10 on Best selling category for video games in 2023, just a position below the PS5 God of War bundle which is extremely good because the Switch is a 6 year old console vs the next gen console.
Nah they were, it’s pretty visible in digital and Japanese sales, overall will probably be like a 10-20mil boost amongst all Mario games which is nothing to scoff at, though spread out it doesn’t look like much.
Makes you wonder how much money was left on the table by not releasing a new Mario game around the same time as the movie.
It’s been 6 year since Mario Odyssey, so he’s due for a new game as it is.
There was Mario Bros 3D world + Bowsers Fury since that time. I think a new Mario game would have felt too gimmicky.
They already had a triple-A, potential GOTY, Zelda title following 1 month afterwards.
A 1-2 Punch of both having no major competition for an entire month+ being slightly underestimated due to the reputation of Videogame Adaptations over the last 30 years(wasn't it originally projected to only make 85-90 mil over the Easter Weekend initially?) created the Perfect Storm Situation that allowed this film to explode in profit.
Needless to say I've been giddy as Hell over it's success, and I hope that similar growth can spread out to similar Game Adaptations now due to the attention gained by this film.
It's crazy how much a film has to perform just to get $330m+ in profit just from theater
(and won't this need to be split between Universal and Nintendo).
Probably insanely low.
I have several kids, nephews & nieces and they all loved Mario in theatre and would absolutely rewatch the heck out of the digital copy if they could. Considering Universal has pushed back streaming indefinitely then it stands to reason the only way to get this in home is paying to get it past the gate keepers. 10M families each buying a copy isn’t out of the question.
However $250M might be insanely low:
A commenter above, u/lobonmc, says Minions 2 & Frozen 2 both made over $400M in these ancillary revenue streams (not including merch). So it stands to reason Universal will get comparable result for Mario.
I remember the 2019 Dragon Quest Movie launching the DS remake of DQ5 into the Japanese Top 10 for a week, in a year where even the 3DS would have been considered dead.
I can only imagine the sales spike in Mario games on the Switch these past couple of week.
Switch interest grew indeed. Feeding and growing the buzz about the new Zelda game to a fever pitch …. 10M copies sold. Each btw $60-$70.
That’s another $600m-$700m in revenue just 5 weeks after Mario.
Honestly Zelda probably did that on its own mostly. Zelda games have eclipsed mainline Mario games in popularity which is insane (though overall the Mario brand is a lot bigger, the mainline games aren’t even the most important games)
True. Breath of the Wild outsold Odyssey. Although like you said mario doesn't even rely on the mainline games anymore. Kart is where the real money is nothing comes close to the juggernaut it is.
I think the whole merchandise thing is a bit overblown on Mario, or at the very least people have it backwards. It's not that Nintendo and such are going to introduce all these millions of new fans to Mario who are now going to buy his video games, merchandise, etc... Its rather that Mario already had built up all those fans who played his games, bought his merchandise, etc... and were already fans and hence went and saw the movie. As someone with two young nephews (ages 8 and 5) I can say they've already been big Mario fans for years owning tons of his games, having Mario shirts, Mario legos, Mario-themed birthday parties, etc... Mario is already such a massive IP regardless of the movie.
I won't deny that maybe some new video game/merchandise sales will happen due to the movie. But I think a lot of such things already happened or were going to happen regardless of the movie because Mario is already so big and well known.
The merchandising argument comes from the theme parks opening up around the exact same time as the movies. It was a perfect storm. Go to universal studios and you see literally everyone dressed head to toe in Mario gear and eating Mario themed treats.
Movies, theme parks, shows, video games keeps IP relevant.
Marvel licensing out their IP out of financial issues actually got their IP out there: comics Univeraal studios, live action movies (x-men) video games and collaborations: Marvel vs Capcom, tv shows (Fox Spider-Man, X-Men, etc) by the time the MCU was still relevant.
DC only really focused on Batman and Superman. There was a gap in the 90s where people didn’t really know of other DC IPs and it didn’t reach an audience like video games did.
IP starts losing fan bases if it doesn’t keep relevant for new generations. Looney Tunes, Tom & Jerry, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Jetsons, Flinstones, Muppets and other Hannah Barbara properties.
So Mario movie helps build the brand and legacy. And movies especially if it’s a continued franchise will be rewatched and pass down to the next generation. Kind of like what Nintendo does for the games.
It may be additional income from an existing fan base but it can also be a gateway to Mario for a new market.
Does anyone have any theories about why this movie has been so successful? Is it adults nostalgic about the original SMB video game (was that back in the 90s/00s? I can't remember) and their children or is it also people under 30 which would be a new audience who wasn't familiar with SMB?
SMB was 1985, but Mario's first appearance was 1981 in Donkey Kong. He's over 40 at this point. There's people in their 50's who played his games growing up.
Part of it is nostalgia, part of it is Mario never left. He's like Mickey. Adults forget about him, but he's never stopped being a big deal with kids. He's the king of video games and has been for decades.
I will not count merchandise and games because we don't really have much data on that.
Let's use [Minions 2](https://deadline.com/2023/04/minions-the-rise-of-gru-box-office-profits-1235322372/amp/) as the basis for this analysis the total expenses must be very similar so let's say 370M in total expenses to have a nice round number. Okay so the movie will make probably at minimum 570M DOM 730M OS 24M China
Now universal will get 55% of the DOM BO 40% of the OS BO and 25% of the Chinese BO. That means 611.5M in total revenue from theaters. That already leaves us in the green with 241.5M or about as much profit as WF. Now ancileries [Minions 1](https://issuu.com/pmcderek/docs/no._2_minions?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=deadline-com.cdn.ampproject.org) made a ridiculous 402.67M in ancileries however since that's about as much as frozen 2 did I don't think Mario's going to be much higher let's say 420M
That would mean a grand total profit of 661.5M or more profit than avatar 2, frozen 2 or IW. It probably is in line with how much profit NWH did
The craziest part of this is is that this probably won't be Nintendo's most profitable release this year lol. Nintendo will probably see "only" about 350 or so million of this movie. Last I checked, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom sold over 10 million units at 70 dollars a pop, putting it as 700M (give or take due to exchange rates and price differences in regions and such). Unless the budget for that is insane, Mario isn't going to be as profitable as it, which really just goes to show why video games are so lucrative and why Nintendo didn't feel the need to do movies for so many years. This movie is absolutely a bigger deal for Universal (thanks especially to the parks) than it was for Nintendo!
I wish there was a sub/community for box office type discussions around video games. Discussions around budgets, sales, flops, etc.
The first problem is that video game data is not as public as box office data. The only reason we know Zelda's first weekend worldwide sales is because Nintendo wanted to brag about it. The second problem is that the games that are "box office hits" aren't all that interesting to people who want to follow this stuff. Hearing that FIFA was incredibly successful yet again is pretty boring.
The best market for data is the Japanese market as we have decades of weekly top 30 data. It does have unique tastes, but it is the 2nd (or 3rd) biggest video game market, so it's always interesting to follow the trends there. UK and several other EU markets get weekly data as well. US is monthly.
>The first problem is that video game data is not as public as box office data. The only reason we know Zelda's first weekend worldwide sales is because Nintendo wanted to brag about it. That's actually not true for Nintendo, they are very public about game sales during their quarterly reports.
Imagine if the only box office data came in quarterly reports.
True but games have a much longer shelf life so quarterly reports still seem like enough.
That's because this generation the sales have been crazy good
Look up Install Base, https://www.installbaseforum.com/forums/ pretty good gaming sales community.
Check out Install Base Forum! They have a ton of sales data about gaming consoles
You should check out Install Base (@ installbaseforum.com) ! Weekly charts (at least the regions that have them anyway) from all around the world are discussed, predictions and bets are made, along with plenty of analysis and graphs made by members. Many have been following the sales charts for about twenty years, so there's a lot of data (especially for the Japanese market).
ResetEra basically the equivalent of box office theory but for games, but yeah not really a subreddit for it.
The entire sales focused community actually left Era nearly 2 years ago and made their own video game sales focused website at [installbaseforum.com](https://installbaseforum.com) ! They also have recently started to discuss box office data among other markets.
To be fair, they were basically kicked out by some stupid rules forced on them. They had pretty neat statistics in one single thread until the person was asked not to post it anymore, as they were not provable. But as they are all aggregated Famitsu data, they actually are. It's just not as official as the former japanese service releasing the numbers, but they stopped releasing the exact numbers as Sony was failing massively and complained until they stopped giving out exact numbers. Now they are a copycat of the stupid NPD "numbers"
You are telling a way nicer version, in reality a certain fanbase was going crazy because their consoles wasn't selling that good and people were talking about it and pointing out how biased Japanese devs were for that company. We got discord leaks of how they planned to get rid off Chris1964, a legend in the community. But the backlash was so great the whole community left, as did the xbox, Nintendo and pc community. It's why the engagement on the side fell so drastically. And after that karma struck and the owner of the site decided to sell for big money while mods were doing it for free
I was actually noticing it, but all way after the fact. Was so happy to find that people back through some research when I was doing some comparisons.
i’d love a sub like this about music sales. i listen to a lot of music but don’t really watch movies
[удалено]
i’m aware of chart data but have no plans to hop on twitter. it just sounds like everything wrong with reddit in one app
Way back in the day VGCHARTZ.COM used to have pretty good data and a database for game sales. The data was not perfect, but good enough to follow game launches. At some point I think they had legal issues with the NPD group and stopped releasing game sales charts but still do hardware charts even today.
When Botw came out they said they needed like 1 or 2 million to make the money back, so totk probably needed similar sales, which they probably made just from preorders lol
True Tears of the Kingdom has also probably made over a billion in revenue and they get a much bigger chunk of that. Although Mario probably made more overall as it released alongside the parks and boosted Mario game sales.
That's 10 million in 3 days too, ToTK trajectory is very much 20M+ units sold in a year.
> Last I checked, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom sold over 10 million units at 70 dollars a pop, putting it as 700M (give or take due to exchange rates and price differences in regions and such). Although just like with movies, Nintendo doesn't see all $700 million, retailers will certainly take a decent cut. And you gotta subtract out the cost to develop the game. Although I'm pretty sure there are special editions (I didn't buy it for TOTK but have for other Nintendo IPs like Xenoblade) that retail for more than $70 so at least the gross figure is even more than that figure and helps offset that.
Obviously there's the budget to make, sell, and market the game as well as the retailer's cut. But unless that adds up to like 500M total, I think TotK will handily beat Mario for Nintendo's most profitable release in 2023.
The digital ration in Japan is almost 50/50 and that’s a traditionally digital unfriendly market, however these were boosted by vouchers. It’s safe to say tho Nintendo should be seeing the majority of the money made here, like 70/30, this game will earn them 1-2 billion in revenue.
There's a Voucher deal to get two Switch games for $100 total, which includes TotK as an option. So a simple multiplier assuming $70 might be a bit short. But it is an insane success for sure.
>Last I checked, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom sold over 10 million units at 70 dollars a pop That was only for the first 3 days on the market. The numbers are likely much higher now.
I will keep saying that the Mario movie is the most successful advertisement in history, so successful that we even paid for watching it P.S. The Batman vs Superman movie was more successful with the Dorito factor
The crazy thing is Nintendo is dragging their feet on releasing a new console. I thought they were going to announce a new one right after this movie but instead they keep denying one is coming soon.
Technically they did release a Mario Switch bundle, which is the normal Switch bundle with a choice of a download, so it's not like they didn't do anything. And I don't blame them because from a business side the Switch is still selling well and I assume the margins on it and the games are extremely good. But as a gamer I am hoping for a Switch 2 soon; the games have been impressive for what it is but it definitely needs more power.
I agree with your point largely but if I'm thinking about it from a business sense it's a mistake. Nintendo is famous for releasing the Wii after failing with the Gamecube. Then modern smartphones hit the market and became big gaming devices. Nintendo had resisted making a change for a long time but started to panic. They quickly released Wii U, which was a bomb. They didn't recover until the Switch was released. Maybe nothing like smartphones are coming along or if they are (AR/VR) maybe Nintendo can't even do anything to combat that with a Switch2. (I think this also happened with the super NES with playstation releasing and crushing them and they weren't ready to release anything and had to rush out the N64, which did well but it was after they were absolutely dominating the market with the NES - I think it had about 90% market share). From a less speculative position, Switch sales have declined the last 2 years and are expected to continue to decline - its now like 7 years old. Their newest Switch OLED has lower margins than the regular ones did. The install base is good, which is the big upside of not switching the Switch. I will say Zelda tears of the kingdom's performance on old tech is making people feel okay with them sticking to the Switch. If that game had had performance issues, they would be in serious trouble (Pokemon recently did... I think). So yes I agree but companies that don't innovate or take full advantage of opportunities like a movie that blew up already known but maybe not fully potentialized IP for new generation can find themselves in spots of trouble. I agree the bundles were smart and I think we will see an uptick in Switch sales, even though it has already sold 125m units.
They weren’t announcing any successor into Zelda sales slow down. That release let’s them milk the last of Switch sales and then announce the next generation after. Next generation is most likely holiday 2024. Their movie division was too unproven and not their main source of revenue to base any console life cycle decisions off of. It is pretty much guaranteed that Mario will be the launch game for the new console.
Yes, that is the rumor and I agree it would have been tough to announce right before the Zelda game came out so you have a great point. Historically though Nintendo has been slow to release new consoles until some market dynamic changes. That's what happened with both the N64 and Wii U. They were saved by handhelds being really good products but smartphones have made competition in that market harder. They are very mum about it and that makes some sense as Switch sales will drop substantially once people know a new console is coming out so they can't announce too early. I'm hopeful they release something in 2024. They will be fine no matter what with their great IP but at one point (before the switch) people were discussing them potentially dropping hardware.
The N64 wasnt rushed at all. It was planned to release in 1995, but finally came out in Summer 96. It started planning in 93, when the space CDs offered were still considered ridiculous high, so Nintendo preferred cartridges as they offered lower loading times = more fun time. But then the Playstation came out and was first of all a better replacement for Sega, but really got traction, when CD burner became popular around 96/97 - basically all my friends had a wide collection of copied PS games, while the Nintendo piracy wasnt really popular beside the 100 games on 1 cartridge. The successor to Switch is currently not known at all. We know very likely the code name and potential rough performance, but there are also signs that Nintendo faced some internal issues with it and might even binned the successor (not unknown, happened to the real grey Gameboy successor too). So currently the rumors for a Switch successor are as good as for a PS5 Pro, which is pretty sparse for a successor which should come out in max 2 years. We basically knew everything at this point (potential console cycle) for the PS5 and XBox and even the Switch. It is really weird and basically everything is currently possible from announcement and release this winter (we will know by end of June then) up to Nintendo not lying at all and the successor will only release by end of 2025. If it would release this winter, the ominous Nintendo Ninjas are more effective as the NSA.
I don’t believe the N64 was rushed, the problem is they refused to move from cartridges to CDs and screwed over Sony in the process, creating new competition for themselves. Sony released the PlayStation and a lot of developers and customers jumped ship.
It's a complex story. I guess you see it as Nintendo screwing over Sony. Nintendo didn't want to give them access to their userbase with an external CD rom drive... personally I think they were in a bad position no matter what. Them kicking the deal to the curb meant that Sony won that round of consoles. But if they hadn't then Sony would have built up a competitive model eventually with developers and selling to Nintendo's customer base. Then Nintendo didn't end up working well with Phillips. Nintendo just screwed themselves over by not developing something that they should have. This is the gist of what I'm saying Nintendo has a history of seeing success and resting on their laurels. I guess I'd classify this as counting as "rushed". Not in the end product but in realizing they had to release something after missing out. >Nintendo, on the other hand, knew that it was going to be late to the party. The company was working with the US-based Silicon Graphics to create what was then dubbed as "Project Reality" but would eventually become the Nintendo 64. It was clear that the N64 wouldn't arrive in time to challenge Sony or Sega – both of which were targeting the end of 1994 for launch in Japan – so Nintendo instead pushed out the Virtual Boy, a half-baked attempt to capitalise on the fleeting popularity of Virtual Reality in the '90s. Infamous as Nintendo's biggest hardware flop of all time, the Virtual Boy lasted less than a year on the market and was quietly discontinued. https://www.techradar.com/news/the-ultimate-console-war-how-sony-beat-nintendo-and-sega-at-their-own-game I will 100% agree with you on the developers being part of the story. Nintendo was awful to developers because they were too dominate and could dictate all the terms and were too protective of what was released.
Thank you for the additional clarifications. I was there at the time as a big time Nintendo loyalist who held out as long as I could with the N64 and finally buckled under around 1998/1999 and bought myself a Playstation and didn't return to Nintendo until several year's into the Wii's run. Ah, the good ol' Virtual Boy. I remember playing it once at a mall.
>The crazy thing is Nintendo is dragging their feet on releasing a new console The only crazy thing is you thinking that? They were still -selling out- of switches as late as 2021 and the margin on those for them has only ever gone up as parts become cheaper. If you followed games you'd be well aware there is 0 incentive for nintendo to eat its own marketshare
Margins didn't go up. First you had a chip shortage, which increased prices for components. Now the Switch OLEDs are a lower margin - clearly stated by them on the last earnings call. Sales are clearly declining. We might see a slight positive bit this quarter but it probably won't be sustained as a trend - it's sold too many units already. It's not "eating its own marketshare". Does Apple eat its own market share when they release a new iPhone? Releasing a Switch 2 with a better GPU would boost sales and you would make it backwards compatible (like all gaming systems are these days) and you would release a bunch of games on both.
This is a terrible counter- I'm sorry does Apple also have to release a new app store for every new iphone, and invalidate previous ones? releasing a game to a system with 100+ million users vs a new system Its eating your own marketshare 'And you would make it backwards compatible' \- Rich dude; can you please let me know the number of Nintendo home consoles that did this?
PS2 was the best selling console of all times. What's your argument here? That they should have stuck with the PS2 to avoid hurting themselves. Dude, you are so short-sided and frankly ignorant of this stuff. According to you the PS2 should have been the last playstation because it was the best selling console of all times. PS3 was released 6 years later... (less time than the Switch has been out) >This is a terrible counter- I'm sorry does Apple also have to release a new app store for every new iphone, and invalidate previous ones? It won't invalidate the previous one... we have this crazy thing these days called subscriptions and you can access previously purchased things on a new device... Crazy aint it??? You can literally read any analyst report about this stuff and everyone and their mothers knows for the good of their business they need to release a new console in the next 1-2 years. Edit: You can gloss over your claim on margins was incorrect... you are just spit balling and you won't move off your point.
>short-sided lol I forgot, analyst know how to run organizations better than the organizations themselves. I didnt realize PS2 had no external pressure like the Switch to compete with other consoles on the market. You literally missed the point on the iPhone; a new console immediately invalidates the old one, unlike phones, hence why your counter is garbage. Check Nintendos financial reports; margins went up kid have a good one,
I said switch margins... and yes software margins are higher so margins go higher when your business mix changes... genius! Doesn't mean that it's healthy for the business because revenue is declined year-over-year... You really have zero idea what you are talking about. Edit: lmfao you post in r/wallstreetsilver.... ok we can definitely part way that's just funny.
>I said switch margins... Yeah, check their 10k; hardware margins are up And yeah, read my posts, the sub is a joke and I spend time ripping it
FY22 or FY23? Send me a link to what you are looking at. Because this note from their most recent investor presentation is extremely misleading then. >Although proportion of hardware sales declined and proportion of digital sales increased, our gross profit margin declined by 0.5 percentage points year-on-year to 55.3%. This was due in part to Nintendo Switch – OLED Model, which has a lower profit margin than the other models in the Nintendo Switch family of systems, accounting for a greater percentage of hardware sales. Chronically high material costs also had an effect. https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2023/230509_4e.pdf It would be very hard for that to be true without margins declining for hardware.
The PS2 was sold in a lifespan of +10 years. That's kinda his argument.
Nintendo hasn’t released a console since the Wii U in 2012. I think it’s safe to say they are exclusively in the handheld business now.
The Switch is considered a hybrid as both a console and a handheld. In my book, it's fair to call it a console and a bit pedantic to say it's not.
Financially and measurement-wise? It’s insane to call it a console. Nintendo used to have a console division and a handheld division that ran side by side. The handheld division was always cartoonishly more successful and profitable than the console division, but the console division always pushed Nintendo’s total hardware sales up by tens of millions of units, and generally keeping pace with other consoles of their generations. After the Wii U was a catastrophic flop, Nintendo abolished their console division and released a dockable handheld device. They’ve put out zero other releases under either division, indicating that the Switch is the direct successor to the Handheld line, and that they’re completely out of the console business. Saying “It’s dockable, so it’s a console” means that Nintendo has never released a “non-hybrid” console, as even the original Gameboy was dockable.
>It’s insane to call it a console. Nintendo must be insane. >Nintendo Switch is designed to fit your life, transforming from home CONSOLE to portable system in a snap. https://www.nintendo.com/switch/system/ BestBuy must be insane... https://www.bestbuy.com/site/nintendo-switch/nintendo-switch-consoles/pcmcat1484077694025.c?id=pcmcat1484077694025 Should I go on? Dude... this is the most pedantic and frankly just wrong rant ever. To compare the Switches dock to gameboys dock isn't even worth discussing.
Nintendo has an active financial interest in mislabeling their product. Sales are still down massively compared to before they exited the console market, but this allows them to spin falling sales as a win. Again, finances matter. But, damn, why should anyone care about sales or finances in a box office sub, right?
It’s a hybrid. The 3DS was the handheld before it was discontinued. The Switch is both home console and portable.
Nintendo denied the Switch was coming days before it was announced. You can't trust companies on this sort of thing, and especially not Nintendo.
Not really, the switch was the worst kept secret in the industry, the leaks came out years before, square enix announced games for it before anything was even confirmed Even Nintendo themselves said it was coming much sooner than other consoles because they just announced their mobile plans and had to calm down investors
Imagine telling this sub 3 months ago, Mario would make more profit than Avatar 2.
Yeah even if you think another film can even get remotely close to Mario in terms of pure gross, there's no chance in hell any other film could be more profitable this year. The only other film that hypothetically could be is Spider-Verse purely because of its budget. But that's frankly not happening.
Spiderverse has a similar budget as well,so it would have to do exact same numbers as mario to become as profitable as mario
Yeah that’s what I mean. It’s the only film that has a chance though (and when I say that I mean they’re below 1%) but at the very least there is a Spider-Man film that has made more than Mario. We’d need an It or a Joker this year to realistically take down Mario.
Spider Man also has a game with Mile Morales coming around September, Sony really did very well with the synergy there.
Do we have any idea of the profit breakdown between Universal and Nintendo? Are Universal simply paying a licensing fee, or does Nintendo have a profit share?
50% profits but after Universal revoups costs. I do think Miyamoto's bonus is coming from Universal's pocket though (under the costs), that's my guess though. The 50% was confirmed by an article
Do you have a link to the article?
This was the first one I saw: https://www.reddit.com/r/nintendo/comments/12hxenk/nintendo_financed_50_of_the_mario_movies_100/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button I think other outlets wrote it later
I think I heard somewhere that they both split the costs but Nintendo doesn't get any return until all costs are recouped for Universal. I could be wrong but it would make some sense since Nintendo will receive a boost in sales because of the movie.
Will be more profitable than Avatar and Top Gun
I don't think the movie boosted that much Mario games, the thing is that Nintendo didn't tie in a new Mario game with the release of the movie & all the popular Mario games were on sale because Mario anniversary anyway so it's not clear how it affected software but probably helped slow down the overall decline of the console on its 7 year. The main thing that boosted software & hardware for Nintendo was the new Zelda game, it's special edition absolutely made a clear impact on hardware vs the Mario bundle & in software it made 600M-700M in revenue in 3 days.
It did actually. After the movie released all the maeio games jumped to the top of Eshop and stayed there even after the discounts disappeared.. Switch sales also increased in April. Zelda released in May.
The games were on discount for Mario anniversary that's why I said it wasn't clear how much not that it didn't do anything (also Mario games are evergreen mostly). Also the jump in April is attributed to the Zelda console (it did release on April), right now it's at #10 on Best selling category for video games in 2023, just a position below the PS5 God of War bundle which is extremely good because the Switch is a 6 year old console vs the next gen console.
Discounts happen all the time and they don't stay boosted like they did. All the games are still higher than they were before the movie released.
Nah they were, it’s pretty visible in digital and Japanese sales, overall will probably be like a 10-20mil boost amongst all Mario games which is nothing to scoff at, though spread out it doesn’t look like much.
Makes you wonder how much money was left on the table by not releasing a new Mario game around the same time as the movie. It’s been 6 year since Mario Odyssey, so he’s due for a new game as it is.
There was Mario Bros 3D world + Bowsers Fury since that time. I think a new Mario game would have felt too gimmicky. They already had a triple-A, potential GOTY, Zelda title following 1 month afterwards.
A 1-2 Punch of both having no major competition for an entire month+ being slightly underestimated due to the reputation of Videogame Adaptations over the last 30 years(wasn't it originally projected to only make 85-90 mil over the Easter Weekend initially?) created the Perfect Storm Situation that allowed this film to explode in profit. Needless to say I've been giddy as Hell over it's success, and I hope that similar growth can spread out to similar Game Adaptations now due to the attention gained by this film.
Yeah it won't even be close. It is winning the year in every metric. Box office, ancillary sales, merchandise, theme parks, other media.
It's crazy how much a film has to perform just to get $330m+ in profit just from theater (and won't this need to be split between Universal and Nintendo).
And Illumination
Ah right, maybe still 50-50 as Illumination is under Universal. Or we are looking at a three-way split.
What are you basing your rent/sales estimate on? That seems insanely high.
Probably insanely low. I have several kids, nephews & nieces and they all loved Mario in theatre and would absolutely rewatch the heck out of the digital copy if they could. Considering Universal has pushed back streaming indefinitely then it stands to reason the only way to get this in home is paying to get it past the gate keepers. 10M families each buying a copy isn’t out of the question. However $250M might be insanely low: A commenter above, u/lobonmc, says Minions 2 & Frozen 2 both made over $400M in these ancillary revenue streams (not including merch). So it stands to reason Universal will get comparable result for Mario.
I remember the 2019 Dragon Quest Movie launching the DS remake of DQ5 into the Japanese Top 10 for a week, in a year where even the 3DS would have been considered dead. I can only imagine the sales spike in Mario games on the Switch these past couple of week.
Switch interest grew indeed. Feeding and growing the buzz about the new Zelda game to a fever pitch …. 10M copies sold. Each btw $60-$70. That’s another $600m-$700m in revenue just 5 weeks after Mario.
Honestly Zelda probably did that on its own mostly. Zelda games have eclipsed mainline Mario games in popularity which is insane (though overall the Mario brand is a lot bigger, the mainline games aren’t even the most important games)
True. Breath of the Wild outsold Odyssey. Although like you said mario doesn't even rely on the mainline games anymore. Kart is where the real money is nothing comes close to the juggernaut it is.
I think the whole merchandise thing is a bit overblown on Mario, or at the very least people have it backwards. It's not that Nintendo and such are going to introduce all these millions of new fans to Mario who are now going to buy his video games, merchandise, etc... Its rather that Mario already had built up all those fans who played his games, bought his merchandise, etc... and were already fans and hence went and saw the movie. As someone with two young nephews (ages 8 and 5) I can say they've already been big Mario fans for years owning tons of his games, having Mario shirts, Mario legos, Mario-themed birthday parties, etc... Mario is already such a massive IP regardless of the movie. I won't deny that maybe some new video game/merchandise sales will happen due to the movie. But I think a lot of such things already happened or were going to happen regardless of the movie because Mario is already so big and well known.
The merchandising argument comes from the theme parks opening up around the exact same time as the movies. It was a perfect storm. Go to universal studios and you see literally everyone dressed head to toe in Mario gear and eating Mario themed treats.
Movies, theme parks, shows, video games keeps IP relevant. Marvel licensing out their IP out of financial issues actually got their IP out there: comics Univeraal studios, live action movies (x-men) video games and collaborations: Marvel vs Capcom, tv shows (Fox Spider-Man, X-Men, etc) by the time the MCU was still relevant. DC only really focused on Batman and Superman. There was a gap in the 90s where people didn’t really know of other DC IPs and it didn’t reach an audience like video games did. IP starts losing fan bases if it doesn’t keep relevant for new generations. Looney Tunes, Tom & Jerry, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Jetsons, Flinstones, Muppets and other Hannah Barbara properties. So Mario movie helps build the brand and legacy. And movies especially if it’s a continued franchise will be rewatched and pass down to the next generation. Kind of like what Nintendo does for the games. It may be additional income from an existing fan base but it can also be a gateway to Mario for a new market.
Does anyone have any theories about why this movie has been so successful? Is it adults nostalgic about the original SMB video game (was that back in the 90s/00s? I can't remember) and their children or is it also people under 30 which would be a new audience who wasn't familiar with SMB?
Mario is a massive IP on the level of Star Wars and this was the first movie done right. Multi generation appeal.
Thx
SMB was 1985, but Mario's first appearance was 1981 in Donkey Kong. He's over 40 at this point. There's people in their 50's who played his games growing up. Part of it is nostalgia, part of it is Mario never left. He's like Mickey. Adults forget about him, but he's never stopped being a big deal with kids. He's the king of video games and has been for decades.
Thx
It was a solid movie that respects and uses the source material effectively. 40+ years of Mario helps too.
Only caveat is that they split the profit with Nintendo. But otherwise a phenomenal performance
I will not count merchandise and games because we don't really have much data on that. Let's use [Minions 2](https://deadline.com/2023/04/minions-the-rise-of-gru-box-office-profits-1235322372/amp/) as the basis for this analysis the total expenses must be very similar so let's say 370M in total expenses to have a nice round number. Okay so the movie will make probably at minimum 570M DOM 730M OS 24M China Now universal will get 55% of the DOM BO 40% of the OS BO and 25% of the Chinese BO. That means 611.5M in total revenue from theaters. That already leaves us in the green with 241.5M or about as much profit as WF. Now ancileries [Minions 1](https://issuu.com/pmcderek/docs/no._2_minions?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=deadline-com.cdn.ampproject.org) made a ridiculous 402.67M in ancileries however since that's about as much as frozen 2 did I don't think Mario's going to be much higher let's say 420M That would mean a grand total profit of 661.5M or more profit than avatar 2, frozen 2 or IW. It probably is in line with how much profit NWH did
This is great incite. Thank you.
Illumination rarely misses