Nintendo Wii Brand Is Worth 10 Billion Dollars

The Nintendo Wii has been found to be the most valuable brand in the videogames industry by a study conducted by Millward Brown Optimor, a communications research agency. For the fifth year in a row, the company has presented the Brand Z Top 100, dominated by Google, evaluated to be worth 114.26 billion dollars, followed by IBM, Apple and Microsoft.

Nintendo, as a company, came in at number 32, with an overall evaluation of 17.8 billion, which is 2% lower than last year. While the Wii home console was on the rise, the Nintendo DS performed worse than expected.

Third place in the value of the brand of gaming consoles went to the Xbox 360 from Microsoft, which was valued at 4.6 billion, one percent lower than in 2009. Sony has an overall value of 8.1 billion, an increase of 30% overall, mostly due to better sales of the PlayStation 3, which has a value of 426 million. The problem for the Japanese firm is that, at the same time, the PS2 has seen a sharp fall.

Millward Brown Optimor has said that gaming is becoming important because home consoles are evolving into “more versatile and convenient media centers where consumers rent and stream media, watch sports and access games on demand.”

Nintendo's domination will be challenged in the coming months as both Microsoft and Sony plan to enter the motion tracking controller business, with Project Natal and the PlayStation Move. The launch of the new peripherals will sharpen the battle among home consoles as Christmas approaches.

Meanwhile, Nintendo might be getting ready to offer a High Definition version of the Wii, possibly unveiled at E3, while the DS family of handhelds will be getting a fresh member in 2011 with the launch of the 3DS, which will offer three dimensional videogames without the need for glasses.