Nintendo's Financial Results Briefing for Fiscal Year Ended March 2022 Q&A Analysis!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - These actually aren't that thrilling.

If you looked at some FAKE NEWS media stories over the past week, you might have heard very juicy things about Nintendo and their Q&A to analysts and investors over their fiscal year ended March 2022 financial results (that KoopaTV analysed here with TWO charts).

Of course, KoopaTV—as a responsible website—waited until the official Nintendo translation of that question and answer session, which lacks juice. Erm... I'd still like for you to read my thoughts on the seven questions, of course. I mean, I'm not just here to tell you to ignore everything below this part of the page! I put some effort into it!

Question 1: Why are you assuming sales declines and these foreign exchange rates?

I wonder if this is the same person that asked about Nintendo's foreign exchange rate assumptions at the 81st Annual Meeting of Shareholders last year. Or maybe Nintendo just has an on-going record of mispredicting foreign exchange rate assumptions to make their numbers look better. (Nintendo had to revise their initial assumptions last year later on.) Anyway, Nintendo president Furukawa acknowledged that there are many supply issues with semiconductors (something Nintendo foolishly dismissed last year) and things are just really uncertain. They also said accurate forecasts are hard in general. As for exchange rates (assuming 1 USD = 115 JPY and 1 EUR = 125 JPY), while Nintendo doesn't make much purchasing in Euros, they do spend a lot of American dollars, so currency shifts with that can effect profitability. Really not that thrilling of a discussion, as someone who slept during finance class (though I still got an A). Moving on...

KoopaTV's Nine-Year Anniversary, and a Free Speech Commitment

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - KoopaTV's free speech values!

Today, KoopaTV is nine years old! Woohoo!

Can... can that be the whole content of the article? No? You want something with some production values and effort? Well, fine.

Since it's on people's minds lately (more than usual, with certain billionaires dabbling in social media platforms that we've previously derided as echo chambers), let's talk about FREE SPEECH. A concept that KoopaTV loves and regularly defends.

Why Free Speech for a Nine-Year Anniversary Article?

There are two things that come to my mind when I think about the number nine, which I've already made clear years ago when I wrote, “Should The Number Nine Be Nixed?” (That was in response to several product lines skipping the ninth version of something. Clearly, KoopaTV isn't skipping this one.) AND I associate both of those things with... FREE SPEECH. (I don't know why I keep capitalising that—I promise it's not something I always capitalise like I do with FAKE NEWS.)

Herman Cain, Nine, and Freedom of Speech

Herman Cain was a former Republican presidential candidate in 2011, famous for his 9-9-9 tax plan that would've replaced the current tax code. That's a 9% personal income tax, a 9% corporate income tax, and a 9% federal sales tax. He loved the number nine in other aspects of his life as well. His website, CainTV (which opened July 4, 2012—because real American patriots purposefully delay things until the next July 4), is the website that KoopaTV is a parody of. When he died, his staff decided to keep the site going, in his name. That site dismantled March 16, 2021, because it got way too weird. The last staffer there remarked about how it was “nine unforgettable years”—but people who know how to count know that it wasn't exactly nine years. It was eight years, eight months, and thirteen days, or 3,178 days total. Our article to commemorate that moment was this one in January of this year about a CAPCOM Lunar New Year Sale, because that's fitting, I guess. (And, what do you know, the CAPCOM Golden Week Sale is STILL going on as of publishing.)

Anywho, KoopaTV has very officially outlasted the website that we were founded to be a parody of. If we just stopped now, I'd feel pretty good about our run. And I wouldn't even have to die to make that happen. Ah, but, back to free speech...

As a political candidate and a commentator on both the web, as well as on the radio, Herman Cain welcomed diverse points of view and free speech. He railed against the lack of free speech on college campuses, and certainly employed freedom of speech of his own, to the point that callers came on the show and accused him of “verbal fellatio.” You can hear that in this clip:

Nindies May 11 2022 Put Me To Sleep, and CAPCOM's Poverty-Busting Philosophy

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I'd say it's cringe, but we did the same thing.

It's a good thing I didn't try to do a live reaction log of today's Nintendo Indie World Showcase, because I literally fell asleep as a result of it. Therefore, the log would have very, very little content. I'm also not the kind of person that falls asleep on their keyboard, so you wouldn't even get strings of nonsense. (I fall asleep backward, not forward. Just like my political philosophies.)

I... embedded that not with the expectation you'd actually watch it, lest you fall asleep too. (It's a problem because I didn't watch this live but in the evening, in other words, when I'm supposed to be writing articles and putting thought into them. Guess you won't get thoughtfulness today!)

With regards to what little commentary I can offer, skip ahead to the Another Crab's Treasure section. To be honest, when the screen said “A BRAND NEW SOULSLiKE” I read “SOULSLiKE” as “Silksong” and was confused. But, yes, the developers at Aggro Crab specifically want it to be like Dark Souls. Here's a real quote from Nick Kaman of Aggro Crab in this video:

Nintendo's Results For Fiscal Year Ended March 2022

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Okay, NOW we're at the hardware declining point.

Cool news—the long-awaited Nintendo financial results for their fiscal year that ended March 2022 has been released. See their explanatory material here and consolidated financial statements this way. Top line results are that from April 1 2021 to March 31 2022, they sold 23.06 million Nintendo Switch consoles across the family, and 235.07 million software games in that same time period (across all publishers). That makes for a lifetime total of 107.65 million Nintendo Switch units, and 822.18 million software units.

Nintendo is super excited that they will have restricted stock units now for their executives. That basically means their executives will have stock-based performance rewards that will encourage them to remain with the company and have it do well. They are also excited for a 10-for-1 stock split vote they are having this fall, as well as stock buybacks—which some investors asked them to do a year ago. That'd make 10 times as much stock in the market, so it should have the effect of dividing Nintendo stock price by 10. Why are they doing this? I have no idea. Companies do stock splits to make their stock more attractive/affordable to non-institutional buyers, but Nintendo's stock is already pretty cheap, I think.

Anyway, here's how some games sold. ...Oh, and I have one never-before-seen data table to add to this series after that, too!

I think it's accurate to say that Ring Fit Adventure is very much slowing down.
And it might even get knocked off the top 10 by Pokémon Legends: Arceus at 12.64 million and rapidly growing.

The 2021 and 2022 20th Anniversary Ace Attorney Orchestra Concert Differences

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Two different 20th Anniversary Ace Attorney concerts... on different years!

Remember that Ace Attorney concert I mentioned at the end of that article about Maya Fey calling Phoenix Wright an attention whore? Well, that concert happened, and it was called the Ace Attorney 20th Anniversary Orchestra Concert. However, there was also a 20th Anniversary Orchestra Concert that took place in 2021, the year of the actual 20th anniversary.

That means... there are TWO concerts in the span of a year for Ace Attorney. That's very impressive and very appreciated attention. But now we're in a scenario where we need to be able to tell the two anniversary-timed concerts apart—2021 and 2022—and they actually do have different sets of music! To which my friend (and KoopaTV reader) Samantha Lienhard messaged me and said that the 2022 concert, unlike the 2021 concert, “had a big section devoted to Investigations 2. ...I want this to mean something.” (She's referencing what could be named Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Miles Edgeworth's total lack of being localised and how we've been asking CAPCOM for years to make that happen.) But I told her the differences required more investigation, and in Ace Attorney fashion, I was granted one additional day of investigating after pleading with the judge. THEREFORE, in that day... I MADE THE FOLLOWING EMBEDDED TABLE.

TAKE THAT!

Why isn't Bungie suffering the blowback that Tripwire Interactive did over abortion commentary?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I think there should be equal treatment, you know.

You don't have to imagine how you'd be treated if you are a pro-life individual working in the videogame industry. Just think about what happened in 2021 to former Tripwire Interactive boss John Gibson. The keyword there is “former”—he was ousted because he supported pro-life positions that about half (give or take) of the United States population generally supports. To get him removed, there were Twitter mobs and videogame journalist mobs going after him. Awful publication Kotaku described him as supporting “evil” and being against “basic human rights.” They had a whole paragraph basically saying he should shut up about his moral beliefs. Even Tripwire's business associates and other companies that work with them were threatening to pull out of contracts because they thought it was so awful that Tripwire's boss would have a mainstream moral viewpoint.

Skip ahead to this week. Game developer Bungie, which is currently in the process of being acquired by Sony but is reportedly facing unexpected regulatory scrutiny, decided to put out a statement expressing that they are in favour of human rights and freedom and are a pro-choice company. (Nevermind that, like so many other people, they are very one-sided in who they believe deserves freedom and human rights.)

Did Kotaku publish an article admonishing Bungie for speaking out about its moral beliefs? Well, they published an article basically congratulating Bungie, and admonishing the ordinary “angry” and “disturbed” gamers on Twitter that were upset and “ugly” about Bungie articulating its political stance. Why doesn't Kotaku describe itself as angry, ugly, and disturbed when it wrote an article attacking John Gibson for expressing his moral beliefs on the same issue, similar to how the gamers in the comments section did with Bungie?

Reggie Fils-Aime vs. Shigeru Miyamoto: The Wii Sports

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Now we get to learn even more about Miyamoto's bad judgment!

This week, former Nintendo of America executive Reggie Fils-Aime released his book, Disrupting the Game: From the Bronx to the Top of Nintendo, where he shares his business and life experience and lessons, including his rise at Nintendo and really his American dream story as a disruptive marketing executive. I see a lot of sites gushing over many stories that Reggie shared in his book. If you look at Nintendo Life, for example, the whole site for the past couple of days has been almost nothing but Reggie Fils-Aime stories.

So I'm hoping for KoopaTV, this'll be the only Reggie Fils-Aime article as a result of the book and the stories there—I have a mixed opinion on Reggie. Well, unless I actually go buy and read his book, which I'm mildly interested in despite not reading books (despite me saying books are a good medium). I want to focus particularly on the story around Wii Sports where Reggie Fils-Aime had to lobby former Nintendo global president Satoru Iwata, as well as Shigeru Miyamoto, on bundling the Wii with Wii Sports.

Check out his book's rave reviews, featuring Geoff Keighley, the man with the unknown title; and Geoff Keighley, the creator and CEO of The Game Awards.
Very different folks who happen to share the same positive thoughts. Look how broad the support is for Reggie's new book!

Coca-Cola Japan Going Mario? (And LGBTQ[A] Pride)

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I mean, still better than Pepsi...

It didn't cross my mind, because anniversaries aren't important to me (I write that as I've been agonising about what I'm supposed to do for KoopaTV's nine-year anniversary next week and I don't really have many ideas), that Super Nintendo World has been open for a little over a year now. You can't make me excited about this. But in spite of me and the several times the park has had health concerns, it's still open for business and your (or a Japanese version of you) visit.

To celebrate, Coca-Cola Japan has made these Super Nintendo World-themed 250 millilitre slim bottles that look a bit cooler than the standard plastic Coca-Cola bottle you might otherwise encounter. They otherwise taste the same and have the same ingredients. These are extremely similar to other 250 millilitre slim bottle designs that Coca-Cola Japan has done for other occasions. They are available now.

On the left bottle is Princess Peach's castle with balloons and fireworks.
On the right bottle is that plumber jumping to open a ? Block and revealing a Super Mushroom, with a Piranha Plant stretching out of a warp pipe.
Unfortunately, it appears that there is safe ground beneath the plumber.

Coca-Cola Japan has also had a Coca-Cola Peach flavour for years, but it doesn't seem directly related to Princess Peach, besides something she'd probably want to drink. I didn't find a Coca-Cola Daisy.

SQUARE ENIX Divests Crystal Dynamics and Eidos and some IP to the "Embracer Group"

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - There are some odd conceptions swirling around I want to clear up!

Yesterday, SQUARE ENIX had announced they sold off Crystal Dynamics (USA) and Eidos Interactive (Canada), two of their Western subsidiaries (oh, they also sold Square Enix Montréal also in Canada, but they're not really relevant because they're a small group that makes mobile games), to the Swedish gaming collective Embracer Group AB for a mere 300 million USD. What is the Embracer Group? According to Phil Rogers, Square Enix America and Europe CEO (well, not for much longer!) in a press release, “Embracer is the best kept secret in gaming: a massive, decentralized collection of entrepreneurs whom we are thrilled to become a part of today.” In other words, Embracer seems fully aware in their own press release that they're a secret and no one knows what they are. They are a parent company with over 12,500 employees dedicated to game development across 10 operative groups (and over a hundred internal studios within those)... and all of those numbers will go up with this acquisition.

You might be familiar with companies like Koch Media / Deep Silver (think Saints Row... and I guess they published Mighty No. 9 and that dumb trailer), THQ Nordic (...you can think of a lot of things, like Destroy All Humans), and Gearbox Entertainment (think Borderlands). These are all children of the Embracer Group, which has... embraced them. Yeah. (That's their explanation for the name, not mine.) With so many brands and franchises under the group, they say they give a lot of creative, decentralised freedom to the companies under them, and Embracer funds them. Embracer's studios also do a lot of work-for-hire for other publishers and companies, and they've said that despite their existing large capacity, they are already at capacity and need even more, talented resources that can make AAA content. Seems like a nice problem to have.

SQUARE ENIX has specifically also sold the IPs to Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Hitman, Thief, Legacy of Kain, and other franchises—but they're keeping Just Cause, Outriders, and Life is Strange because SQUARE ENIX still has some remaining overseas studios...? They said that SQUARE ENIX's studios are all the ones in Japan, the Square Enix Collective (which is a Square Enix Europe project) and Square Enix External Studios (also a Square Enix Europe initiative). So while a lot of people North America will move to work for Embracer, there will still be some people in “Square Enix Europe” publishing and working on things with the Western IP that SQUARE ENIX wants to keep around for whatever reason.

All of those words are probably confusing, so here's an image I edited that relies on me knowing Earth's geography; not really my strong suit as someone not from Earth:

KoopaTV's April 2022 Review Newsletter

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The many going-ons of April 2022!

We got through another month together, KoopaTV fans and readers! And I thought April 2022 went by super quick. I mean, I gotta make decisions on what to do for the next round of the KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program ALREADY? It felt like I just gave the prize out for the last one, and now I gotta do that again.

But along with KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program-related stuff, we have other things to review in this newsletter reviewing April 2022. Starting with...

New Comments Form Experience

Added to the list of “so-called improvements that Google has made across all Blogger websites that no one asked for”, the comments section form to submit a new comment has been totally changed as of... sometime later in the month. (Sometime April 25?) I think it's worse. It used to be a box but it's just expandable white space now. But I'm also more concerned about if it actually works for everyone or not, since some folks in the support forum are saying that their comments section is now just broken and people can't actually comment things anymore.

If that applies to you, I ask that you email me at ludwig at koopatv dot org and let me know. (Obviously, if the comments section is really broken, you won't be able to use it to comment to me that it's broken.) For your information, there's no opt-in or opt-out to the change. It's forced upon me. ...Well, as far as I know. Maybe if I was more TECH-Y I could do something. Let me know if you actually like this more.

Top Five Recommended Experiences of April 2022

What kind of new articles were there to reply to? Check out this chronologically ordered list of experiences published in April 2022:

1. Humour Under Assault and Battery — When people believe that words are violence, you get things like Will Smith slapping comedians. Ludwig even got banned from somewhere for laughing at someone else's joke!
2. Censorship? Contrived Chrono Cross Controversy — Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition is a new victim of the drive-by anti-censorship squad that reflexively moan about social justice warriors ruining games. But if you objectively look at what happened... there's no censorship and the whole outrage is laughable.
3. In a WEIRD (but real) Tweet, Miyamoto/Illumination Delay the Super Mario Bros. Film to Spring 2023 — There were a pair of tweets from Nintendo and from Illumination about the untitled Super Mario Bros. film. Illumination's was normal... and Nintendo's was strange. I dissected the Nintendo tweet line-by-line in this article.
4. Yes, Maya Fey Did Say Phoenix Wright is an Attention Whore — It's been a question in the Ace Attorney franchise—does Maya Fey have that much of a mouth on her that she's saying the phrase “attention whore”?
5. Don't Fall for Yuji Naka Trying to Redeem Himself or BALAN WONDERWORLD — Yuji Naka is trying to revise the commonly acknowledged development history of BALAN WONDERWORLD... but if you read between his lines like I did in the article, you can get to something closer to the real truth.

OF COURSE, everything on KoopaTV is worth reading, so be sure to... read everything!