14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that Nintendo can do no wrong. The Wii home gaming console is outselling both the PlayStation 3 from Sony and the Xbox 360 from Microsoft, while the Nintendo DS manages to even outsell its corporate brother. The games for the two platforms are also consistently beating the 1 million barrier, with titles like Nintendogs and Wii Sports going past 20 million units sold since they were released.
Still, the company reduced the profit target for the first quarter of 2009, saying that the economic situation of the biggest economies, which are also the biggest videogame markets, would lead to a slump in sales. The Yen is also pretty strong right now, reducing the profits for each Wii sold overseas by the Japanese company.
Hiroshi Kamide, who is an analysts for KBC Financial Products, talked to the UK Times about how Nintendo would perform during the following months and is quoted as saying that a reduced profit forecast from the company means that “the roaring pace of Wii growth that we’ve seen until now may be over.” He added that “The numbers also imply that we are going to see a sudden collapse in the fourth quarter from record margins to some of the thinnest margins Nintendo has experienced for three years.”
Michael Patcher, the videogame analyst from Wedbush Morgan, thinks that Nintendo will continue to perform well despite the fact that the Japanese videogame market is likely to grow by 1% in the coming quarter.
Meanwhile, on the Japanese stock exchange, Nintendo shares have gone down by no less than 12%, which is the maximum allowed under the rules of the market. The main reason for the drop of the company is the fact that the profits for the quarter that goes from January to March might be two thirds lower than during the previous year.