Compared to the contrasting market performances in Fusang and Huaxia, the market in the United States presented a rather calm picture.
Firstly, although the US market also saw a simultaneous release on day one, the stocking times varied across different regions. Many areas only received the first series of Pokémon blind boxes, the Huángshǎng, a month after the public sale began.
However, this was unavoidable. BL.
Boss Huang's willingness to invest so heavily was naturally linked to the sales performance of the Huángshǎng in the US market.
While the sales scene for the Huángshǎng in the US had not reached the explosive levels seen in Fusang, where large crowds would queue outside every convenience store, it did not necessarily indicate poor sales.
This was because the US had a large population spread across a vast geographical area. Moreover, this time, it was a convenience store alliance, not limited to a single brand of convenience store chain. As a result, one might find seven or eight convenience stores on a single street selling the Huángshǎng, unlike in Fusang where only one store might carry it, making massive queues unlikely.
However, the way Americans purchased the Huángshǎng was quite different.
Fusangese people typically bought the Huángshǎng through a lottery system, purchasing five items at a time and then rejoining the queue.
Americans, on the other hand, bought them in bulk.
Yes, that's right, they bought an entire set of the Huángshǎng in one go.
Due to the exchange rate, a single draw for the Huángshǎng in the US cost $7, with a full set costing $560. For many Americans, this was not a significant amount of money.
This method allowed them to directly obtain all 11 different Pokémon wind-up toys, avoiding the situation where their collection might be incomplete due to others purchasing items in between.
Furthermore, these convenience stores were shrewd. Their wholesale price was 30% off, which amounted to $392.
Therefore, they offered a discounted price of $500 for a full set, saving customers $60 compared to purchasing them individually. Many found this to be a great deal and opted for the full sets.
According to post-sale statistics, over 70% of the rewards were sold as full sets, with only 30% being purchased through individual draws. This clearly highlighted the cultural differences between the US and Japan.
As for the Chinese market, the situation was different; China was simply poorer.
Despite the US market's sales in the first week being significantly lower than the Fusang market, which sold over 220,000 sets in three batches within a week, and another 300,000 sets in the following month until sales stopped and it was declared a limited edition, totaling 520,000 sets.
The US market had a unique characteristic. Due to a month-long gap in contract signing between the first and second batches of stores, the first batch of Pokémon Huángshǎng was declared discontinued and limited edition after two months of sales.
In this manner, 30,000 sets were sold in the first week of sales.
However, this figure increased to 210,000 sets after one month.
As the entire production capacity was allocated to the US market in the subsequent month, and with growing interest from players over time, the sales in the second month far surpassed the first, ultimately reaching a total of 740,000 sets, a third more than the Fusang market.
It is worth noting that since the US market had the highest sales price among the three markets, Jiangnan Group could earn a pure profit of $300 per set of Huángshǎng.
740,000 sets translated to $220 million, nearly double the entire Fusang market. However, as this income was to be split equally with US Priority Group, the actual profit earned was similar to that of the Fusang market.
Although the exact earnings of Jiangnan Group remained unknown to outsiders as neither Jiangnan Group nor US Priority were publicly listed companies and thus not required to disclose financial reports, XiYou Commercial Trading Company, being a publicly listed entity, had to disclose its financial reports quarterly. Consequently, the profits earned by XiYou Commercial Trading Company from the Huángshǎng were soon publicized.
By the time these figures were released, seven different series of Huángshǎng had been sold, accumulating an astonishing profit of $210 million. This accounted for 12.75% of XiYou Commercial Trading Company's total quarterly revenue at the time, an incredibly impressive and staggering achievement.
Upon the release of this information, everyone at Nintendo was utterly astonished.
Considering that their annual profit from various Pokémon copyright licensing was only tens of millions of dollars, the fact that a single release of blind boxes generated such immense profits was a clear indication that their merchandise profit-making capability far surpassed Nintendo's.
Consequently, Nintendo decided to follow suit and soon announced its own blind box releases, featuring their popular game IPs as the star products.
However, their products were not called Huángshǎng because the name had already been registered as an exclusive trademark by Jiangnan Group. They eventually settled on the name Tiāntángshǎng.
Upon learning this, they were informed that Tiāntángshǎng had already been registered, and the registrant was none other than Jiangnan Group, which made Nintendo's eyes roll back in disbelief, cursing their unscrupulousness.
Further investigation revealed that Jiangnan Group had registered over two hundred different trademarks with "shǎng" at the end, from Tiāntángshǎng to Yīfānshǎng, essentially registering any name that sounded appealing and catchy.
Left with no other choice, Nintendo had to name their own product Rentíāntángshǎng. Fortunately, this name had not been registered, and it would have been impossible to register anyway.
Initially, capitalizing on the immense popularity of the Huángshǎng and the anticipation and love users held for Nintendo, the Tiāntángshǎng achieved good sales, selling around 100,000 units in the first week.
However, soon after, various negative reviews flooded Fusang's Weibo.
Yes, Fusang now had Weibo. After all, the US was Fusang's "father," and who would dare oppose a company from their "father's" country entering the Fusang market?
Fusang's market did not have a well-established social media website, and Fusangese people generally disliked change.
Thus, much like how Yahoo, after dominating the search market in Fusang, successfully resisted Google's offensive and remained the dominant search engine in Fusang, Weibo, upon entering the Fusang market, naturally occupied the entire market due to its first-mover advantage. Even subsequent social media websites established by Fusangese individuals could not shake this dominance.
In essence, with the release of Rentíāntángshǎng, a large number of buyers soon posted various updates on Weibo, all of which were complaints about Rentíāntángshǎng.
Complaints about the designs lacking novelty, being mere static figurines, were one thing.
The issue was that many users posted rather bizarre items. For example, some figurines were missing fingers, some had very peculiar expressions, and some even had paint overflow.
In short, every 1,000 Rentíāntángshǎng rewards had 1,000 different problems. However, this was quite normal, as Nintendo was primarily a game developer and lacked the capability to produce merchandise. They had to outsource the production of merchandise to other manufacturers.
And Nintendo, with its inherent stinginess, naturally did not choose expensive, well-known manufacturers for subcontracting. Instead, they opted for obscure small factories, resulting in an explosion of negative reviews and making them a laughingstock.
What was even more alarming was that this dire situation was not a one-off occurrence. The subsequent several issues of Rentíāntángshǎng yielded the same results, with the situation even worsening. Eventually, in one instance featuring a Zelda figurine, the protagonist Link's head would fall off with the slightest movement, achieving a beheading achievement.
If it were merely a decapitation, that would have been one thing. However, the entire Link figurine's appearance had become completely monstrous, comparable to the infamous "evil god" Baer.
Nintendo faced widespread condemnation and was ultimately forced to withdraw the Tiāntángshǎng product line, reaffirming its commitment to solely focusing on game development and strictly avoiding other ventures.