14 DAY TRIAL // The holiday season is rapidly approaching and all of the manufacturers, producers and publishers of games and gaming hardware are anticipating some very high sales, even though the recent financial crisis has taken its toll on some of the companies.
Although the game publishers have a few worries, because a lot of great titles are scheduled to appear and people won't have enough money to buy them all, console manufacturers are embracing the holiday season with open arms. Microsoft said, through the voice of its UK entertainment executive, that this Christmas season would certainly guarantee big sales and a very big profit for the Xbox 360.
Nintendo recently talked about this upcoming period and said that it was very optimistic about the sales of consoles, both the Wii and the DS, and games, like Wii Music or Animal Crossing. Through the voice of its North American division chief, Reggie Fils-Aime, the Japanese company declared that the growth it had registered ever since the consoles were launched would be kept and it would continue to rise this season.
"If I look at this from an industry perspective, I think ‘cautiously optimistic’ is quite appropriate. If I look at it from a Nintendo perspective, I would say ‘very optimistic’. We have very strong products in the marketplace — both hardware and software. The Wii console continues to sell out, (and) on the DS side, we are at almost 20 percent growth year on year, on a record year in 2007. We have had very strong software growth, both console and handheld. And we have just launched Wii music (and) we are about to launch Animal Crossing. So we need to execute and continue delivering strong value and strong entertainment choices for the consumer, and if we do that we should have a robust holiday season."
Some very bold words, which are certainly backed up by the sales charts that confirm the fact that Nintendo is the most profitable company out there, registering massive sales, even though the Wii has been around for two years now. Let's just hope that it will continue to offer great games and will not start resting on its laurels.