Forbes recent assignment of Nintendo’s 21% profit drop contains an interesting definition behind the meaning of the root Nintendo. From the article: “Ninten, the Japanese word from which the Nintendo name is derived, is roughly translated as leave luck to heaven or in heaven’s hands.”
Maybe that’s why the company is so good at turning a profit.
[Source: Forbes]
Anonymous
I hate to break it to you but most Nintendo fans should already know this… and it seems a bit odd to be talking about Nintendo’s profit skills in the same breath as their recent 21% profit drop :\
I know they are good at profiting (unlike Microsoft and their expensive Xpox), but that article isn’t the best example of that…
Rollin
Out of all their profits, they came up short by 21%. That means 79% of their targets r still met. If you wanna get down to the nitty gritty, 21% aint jack to them. Other companies would kill for that 21%.
Nicholas Roussos
Let’s not forget that dropping profits means that Nintendo has a bie enough profit to drop. It’s really not dire straights for Nintendo.
It’s end of life cycle blues. I think Nintendo has really figured out how to kill fixed life cycle on the portable market. Look at the GBA, or the SP (or even the original GB and GB Color). There hasn’t been a sudden drop-off as there usually is with the console market. It’s my guess that they are trying to take these lessons to the console market and finally end the dreaded life-cycle.
Personally, I don’t want to retire my console every four years. I’m not against buying new systems, either.
DeepThought
strange article, especially from a mag as reputable as forbes:
“Nintendo’s geeks are currently developing a new game console codenamed “Revolution”, although nothing is yet known about what the revolutionary aspect will be.”
“the square-eyed folks in Kyoto will need to come up with larger hard drives, improved wide-screen graphics, CD and music players, Internet and wireless connections, and innovative control pads–as well as some killer games–to put the squeeze on its rivals.”
regarding the first quote- does this author (Chris Noon) know ANYTHING about the Revolution?
regarding the second- the gamecube profited without the extra multimedia stuff, so his assertion is hard to swallow. further, internet, wireless, and a more-than-slightly innovative control pad have already been announced. which leads me to broaden my first point: does this author know ANYTHING about video games at all?
I find it hard to believe that Forbes is running such an ill-informed industry piece. Chris Noon is several months behind on industry news and I’d be highly suspect of any “insights” he provides.
Wai-Tung Leung
Like people have said, it’s not exactly a big biggie when it comes to a profit drop towards the end of the GameCube. It’s really nothing to get too concerned about. Things are still rosy for Nintendo and it’s quite unrealistic to expect profits to get better each and every quarter! A profit is a profit and Nintendo will hopefully make a lot next year from Revolution and so have loads to finance their Research and Development department with to make even greater consoles with! The future looks bright! ^_^
Anonymous
Maybe the point is that all the consoles have the aforementioned capabilities – it’s just that the games will be the litmus test….
🙂
Profits aren’t too much of a prob though, it’s just the end of the cycle etc…