Reggie Fils-Aime: Holiday Sales Are 'Critically Important' To Nintendo

With Black Friday over and Cyber Monday in full swing, holiday sales are happening like mad right now. And in the midst of all that is Nintendo, with a special Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Nintendo Switch bundle and various games marked down in price. But you may not realize just how vital holiday sales are to the company.

Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America, reiterated their importance in a recent interview with Yahoo Finance, indicating that holiday sales actually make up a good amount of revenue for the company. Even with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate lingering in the distance, Nintendo has a pretty heavy reliance on success over the next few days.

He explained, "The holiday selling season -- October, November and December -- critically important to our company. We typically do, in the Americas, about 60% of our revenue during that time frame. The reason that it's so significant is first, our products make great gifts. Whether you're talking about Nintendo Switch, whether you're talking about Nintendo 2DS, we really do well with that gift-giving occasion."

It's interesting, since most companies usually rely on year-round success and popularity of games. After all, not everything releases around the holiday season. Look at Capcom's line-up for 2019, in which the likes of Devil May Cry 5, the Resident Evil 2 remake and Onimusha Warlords will all arrive in the beginning of the year, rather than the later portion.

But Nintendo has nothing to worry about. The Pokemon Let's Go! games have already proven to be a huge success over the Black Friday weekend, becoming one of the most popular sellers on the market and creating records for Nintendo Switch in general. And other games, like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey continue to find success well over a year past their release, with new people discovering and enjoying the games every day. Now that's longevity for you.

As for where 2019 will go, Nintendo already has a stacked deck of games coming, like New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, Animal Crossing and Luigi's Mansion 3, along with forthcoming favorites like Bayonetta 3 and Metroid Prime 4, which we should see sooner rather than later.

But, for now, the holidays appear to belong to Nintendo; and its sales should suit the company just fine. Especially once Ultimate heads our way.

The Nintendo Switch is available now.