Business
Nintendo acquires Xenosaga developer Monolith
There’s some RPG-related Nintendo news from IGN this morning: Nintendo may have just become a major player in the RPG field. Bandai Namco Holdings issued a press release today announcing that it will transfer 80% of its 96% stake in Monolith Soft to Nintendo, effective May 1. I’ve always had this tiny Square shaped hole in my heart left over from the days when Nintendo and Squaresoft (...
Could I have a match? Try Apple and Nintendo
No, Apple and Nintendo aren’t merging, but their profits for the fiscal year are quite literally blowing investors’ minds. Seriously, I think there have been a few exploding head fatalities on Wall Street. Truly, the human brain can only handle so much profit forecasting. Apple posted 88% profits this week, while Nintendo is sitting pretty with “a group net profit of 174.29 billi...
Nintendo posts record year – DS is mostly to blame
From a release by Nintendo today: Nintendo Co., Ltd., today reported final consolidated fiscal year revenues of 966.5 billion yen and operating profits of 226.0 billion yen for the year ending March 31, 2007, an increase of 90 percent and 150 percent, respectively, over the same period one year ago. Both numbers are record highs for the company. An increase of 90 percent and 150 percent! But how? ...
Video game consoles as media centers are a failed strategy
Information Arbitrage has a few questions this morning: The runaway success of the Wii, the introduction of AppleTV and the problems encountered by both Microsoft and Sony raises more than a few questions: Does the grand “media center” vision really have legs? Are the high-priced Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles viewed as inaccessible by the casual gamer? Can you get to 100 million in console...
There are still 50-person lines for the Wii
Via the NeoGAF forums: “Q1 is looking like the beginning of an up-cycle year,” said Billy Pidgeon, video game analyst, IDC. “There’s good software movement, but hardware is stalled a bit by short Wii supply and stagnant demand for 360 and PS3. I believe the Wii will continue strong growth although supply continues to be a problem,” Pidgeon said. “I’d like ...
Business 2.0: How the Wii is creaming the competition
Business 2.0 (my favorite biz magazine) has published the “untold story of how the Wii beat the Xbox, PlayStation.” Behold my copy and paste skills! “Nintendo’s turnaround began five years ago, when the company’s top strategists, including CEO Satoru Iwata and legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, zeroed in on two troubling trends: As young consumers started caree...
We’re Number One – top sellers for the week
Here are the number one Wii and DS games sold around the world this week:WiiNorth America: Super Paper MarioUK: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight PrincessJapan: Super Paper Mario DSNorth America: Elite Beat AgentsUK: Dr. Kawashima’s Brain TrainingJapan: TOEIC Test DS Training Super Paper Mario stays on top in the US and conquers Japan after being released there this week. Puzzle Quest disappears...
Nintendo, industry surge to $1.1 billion in sales
Just to build a bit on Blake’s “Nintendo dominates sales AGAIN” post from yesterday… Nintendo, in addition to dominating the sales numbers for North America with the DS, Wii, and even the GBA (which beat the PS3 in sales), has helped boost the overall sales of the video game industry to over $1 billion dollars. And yes, the PS2 and God of War 2 also helped considerably. I&#...
NPD: DS sells nearly double everything else; PS2 outsells Wii
NPD just released the below hardware numbers for US sales (in units) during the month of March: DS – 508,000 PS2 – 280,000 Wii – 259,000 (Was expected to be 400k) 360 – 199,000 PSP – 180-000 GBA – 148,000 PS3 – 130,000 GCN – 22,000 Industry sales were up 33% over last year with God of War 2 as the top selling game for the month. Regarding the DS, her...
Economist: Nintendo made a "colossal blunder" on Wii manufacturing
The Freakonomics blog has a post up today examining why the Wii currently has a national availability of 2-5% some 5 months after its launch. The article calls Nintendo’s inability to supply demand “pretty unusual” and that retailers are benefiting as consumers continually return to stores to try and find the system. What’s more, Wii shortages hurt game makers, especially w...
Nintendo hardware still hot in Japan, software cools
The people of Japan must be using DS Lites to construct new buildings, because they’ve bought up more than 500,000 a month, every month, since April 2006. Are there really that many people?! The software scene troubles me however, because that’s where the real meat of the industry is. IGN: According to Enterbrain’s Famitsu Marketing Data Service, in March 2007 Nintendo had the be...
Analyst: "Gaming has been a disastrous endeavor for Microsoft"
“Particularly from an investment perspective,” says Wall Streeter Roger Ehrenberg. Note, this doesn’t mean the Xbox has been a disaster for gamers — far from it (cough, cough Halo) — but Ehrenberg makes a strong case that the Xbox has failed investors by hemorrhaging Microsoft’s Home & Electronics profits. He also believes that when a console fails in Japan,...