Following the NES Classic Edition's discontinuation earlier this month, Nintendo has revealed just how many units of the specialty hardware were shipped around the world.
Speaking to IGN, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime revealed that Nintendo "sold in 2.3 million units" worldwide since the system's launch on November 11, 2016.
For those unfamiliar, "sell in" means units shipped to retailers to be sold through to consumers. In January, Nintendo revealed it had sold through 1.5 million NES Classic Edition units, which means at least 65 percent of that current worldwide shipped number was sold through as of February 1, 2017. Fils-Aime did not offer updated sold through numbers, however, but did say note the "NES Classic was originally planned to be a product for this past holiday."
"We didn't anticipate just how incredible the response would be, but once we saw that response, we added shipments and extended the product for as long as we could to meet more of that demand" Fils-Aime said.
We need to make sure we manage all of our resources in an effective way.
Fils-Aime also explained the company's thinking behind the decision to discontinue the product while demand still existed for it.
"We understand that some people were frustrated about not being able to find the system, but for us, we need to make sure we manage all of our resources in an effective way," he said. Fils-Aime went on to note that "At the same time we were facing this surging demand for NES Classic, we were preparing to launch Nintendo Switch," and so as Nintendo "saw the demand, as we saw the excitement [for the Switch], in fact we were able to increase our production and sold in, and largely sold through 2.7 million [Switch] units."
Nintendo revealed the Switch's worldwide sales numbers earlier this week as part of the company's year-end earnings release.
A couple of weeks earlier, Nintendo confirmed the decision to discontinue the NES Classic to IGN, explaining that "NES Classic Edition wasn’t intended to be an ongoing, long-term product. However, due to high demand, we did add extra shipments to our original plans."
At the time of its launch, various reports revealed how in-demand the system, a miniature recreation of the NES hardware featuring 30 games, and IGN took a look at how the shortages dampened what should have been a fun moment for Nintendo and fans. Following the recent discontinuation news, IGN also examined what Nintendo could learn from the NES Classic's failures.
The official Nintendo NYC store also announced that yesterday would be the last day the store would sell the NES Classic, while recent reports suggest that Nintendo will release an SNES Classic Edition sometime this year.
Reporting by Jose Otero. Jonathon Dornbush is an Associate Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter @jmdornbush.
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