Nintendo continues to print money.... many many many of them

Nintendo upgraded their full financial year operating profit forecast for the year to March to 420 billion yen. The first half year profit is 188.8 billion yen. For those who don't understand yen, that's lots and lots of money.

Nintendo has also upgraded their Wii forecast from 16.5 to 17.5 million units, and globe sales of software to 97 million units. Its stock rose to 66,400 yen (AUD$644 a share). It revised its annual net profit forecast to 275 billion yen, 58% higher than last year.

Looks like the Wii and the DS is still taking over the world.

Source: Reuters

Nintendo now Japan's 2nd most valuable company

Back in July, Nintendo became the 5th largest Japanese company. Two months on, it is now Japan's second most valuable company, surpassing Canon with 8.34 trillion yen. As said so many many times before, Nintendo's fortune is fueled by the demand for both the DS and the Wii. Nintendo software also plays no small part in its fortune.

However, it will be a long way to the top, as the big mother of them all, Toyota, has a market value of 24 trillion yen, 3 times more than Nintendo. Nintendo shareholders is laughing all the way to the bank with their share quadrupling over the past 2 years.

Source: Reuters

4.5 Million PS3 worldwide

Sony has reported that they have sold 4.5 million of their big black box worldwide. To make the number a bit of creditable, it is the actual number sold, as compared to the number shipped. During the first 5 months, Sony has sold 665,000 PS3 in the US. As a comparison, Nintendo has sold 1.73 million and Microsoft 1 million. Still lacking far behind the rest, but with no good games being released during that period, you would expect the number to be like that.

Sony, as a whole, has reported their first quarter profit more than tripled. Their digital camera and the weaker yen is helping the profit. For the first quarter, net profit more than doubled to 66.5 billion yen, while operating profits rose three-fold from 27 billion yen last year to 99.3 billion yen. Sales were up 13.3 per cent to 1,977 billion.

The film division made a 3.25 billion yen profit against a 1.17 billion loss last time, largely thanks to the success of the third Spider-Man film.

So Sony as a whole is still very healthy, but it's PS3 that's killing them. And that's probably all we care about at the moment.

Source: PS3fanboy, International Business Times

Nintendo now 5th biggest Japanese Company

Things doesn't get better than this. Nintendo is now the fifth biggest Japanese company by market value after their stock rose the the maximum allowable daily rise of 5,000 yen. Its market value now stands at 8.76 trillion yen, outstripping Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, NTT and Honda Motor Co, which had placed higher in the rankings only a day before.

That is after reports of its first quarter profit. The first quarter saw a net profit of 80.25 billion yen to June compared to the previous year's 15.55 billion yen. Operating income in the fiscal first quarter more than tripled to 90.63 billion yen from 28.80 billion previously, while revenue expanded 160 percent to 340.44 billion yen from 130.9 billion the year before.

Nintendo raised the forecast for both of their hardware. It now expects to sell 26 million DS and 16.5 million Wii consoles this fiscal year, up from 22 million and 14 million.

In case you don't know how to count in a million, that's a shitload of Nintendo power.

Source: Forbes, Reuters

Sega profit dropped 34%

Sega, the maker of Sonic and Daytona USA, reported 34% drop in profit for the 06-07 fiscal year. Profit fell to 43.5 billion yen (US$363 million), down from 66.2 billion yen the previous year.

Sega merged with pachinko maker Sammy in October 2004. The pachinko machine sales nose-dived 20 percent in the past fiscal year, and times will continue to be tough in that business in coming months. Guess not everyone is into Evangelion pachinko machines. Maybe they all went home to play Evangelion pachinko instead.

Sega Sammy projected a deteriorating 35 billion yen (US$292 million) profit for the fiscal year through March 2008.

Source: Mainichi Newspaper

Square Enix profits surge, but no FFXIII until 2008

Square Enix, the maker of popular RPG game Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series today reported a 67.5% rise in operating profit over the previous year, but it's predicting a 19% during the 2007 fiscal year.

Operating profit is up from last year's ¥15.47 billion, to ¥25.92 billion (US$213 million). Sales also increased 31% to a record ¥163.47 billion ($1.34 billion).

During the 2006 fiscal year, Square Enix shipped 16.93 million video games globally, and it's packaged game business brought in ¥16.3 billion ($133.9 million). The firm's online game business also saw marked improvement over last year, posting elevated operating profit of ¥6.8 billion ($55.8 million), up from last year's ¥5.9 billion. Other divisions, including publishing, cellphone content and amusement facility businesses also improved over last year.

However, net profit was down 32% to ¥11.62 billion because the company “wrote back only 3 billion yen in provisions, having written back 9 billion yen in provisions the year before,” according to a report by Japanese service AFX News.

During this fiscal year, the company projects ¥12 billion net profit, while operating profits drop 19% to ¥21 billion.

According to IGN, Square Enix president Yoichi Wada has indicated that the PS3 saviour next Final Fantasy title, not surprising called Final Fantasy XIII, would not be released before 2008. "It will still take a bit more time," said the president. "At the very least, [a release] this fiscal year is definitely out of the question." So that rules out any time before April 2008.

So I guess we'll just have to keep on watching the trailer until the new one comes out. That's bad news for Sony. They desperately need a blockbuster game right now to boost sales of the PS3. With MGS4 delayed, and now FFXIII not coming until 2008, looks like Sony will have to battle through 2007 with, I don't know, swords and guns ,maybe.

Source: Gamasutra

Konami net revenues up, but profit down, despite selling 8M Pro Evo Soccer.

Konami, the maker of Winning Eleven, Dance Dance Revolution and DrumMania reported today the net revenues for the company rose by 6.9% to ¥280.3 billion (US$2.31bn). Operating income also rose sharply to ¥28.1 billion ($231.4m), while overall profits dropped 29.5% to ¥16.2 billion ($133.4m).

The company also reported that they have shipped 8 million copies of their soccer franchise Winning Eleven (better known as Pro Evolution Soccer) during 2006 fiscal year. I've played both FIFA from EA and Winning Eleven from Konami. While Winning Eleven is so much more realistic, FIFA is easier to control. But I love Winning Eleven more than FIFA, despite FIFA getting all the official names and whatnots.

The Winning Eleven/Pro Evolution Soccer series was noted as the company’s most successful franchise, with global sales of eight million during the year representing the highest level ever.

Sales of the Dance Dance Revolution series were also strong, with over one million unit sales, alongside other series such as Yu-Gi-Oh! and new titles such as manga license Death Note: Kira Game and Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops.

You might not know this, but Konami has a range of health & fitness clubs all over Japan. Equipment sales from the division is up 8.9% to ¥88.5 billion, with operating profit of ¥7.5 billion.

You might also not know this, Konami also produce slot machines for casinos. The gaming & system segment, which includes arcade machines and gambling, saw sales rise by 57.6 percent to ¥16.7 billion ($137.5m) with an operating income of ¥2.2 billion ($18.1m).

Metal Gear Solid 4 is probably the company's most awaited game for this fiscal year, and it will be the main driver for Konami.

Source: Gamasutra, GameSpot

Sony's profit fell 68%

Sony today has reported a 68% drop in profit for the 2006-07 financial year. The gaming division, which is in charge of the development and ongoing support for the PS3, has reported a loss of over $1.9 billion.

We have known for months now that the PS3 is not selling as well as Sony has hoped. The report today confirmed the gloomy prediction. Sony has made 5.5 million PS3, well short of the 6 million target set. Out of the 5.5 million, only 3.9 million made it to the store. The remaining 1.9 million are in transit or sitting in Sony warehouses, mounting to as much as $1.1 billion in inventory. In comparison, Nintendo, which released the Wii at around the same time as PS3, has shipped 5.84 million units. Microsoft, which has a year head start, has 10 million XBox 360 en masse.

During the same period, Sony has shipped 14 million PS2 and 8 million PSP.

In lights of stiff competition, Sony had no choice but to discount the PS3 earlier than expected. The price of the 60GB model (now the one and only model) has been slashed. Merrill Lynch estimates the discounts would shave nearly $600 million off the division's sales. PSP also suffered the same fate in the face of the never ending popularity of Nintendo's DS, outselling it by a factor of 2 to 1.

Sony hopes to spur demand for their console and keep the third party games development companies from holding off their PS3 games development. Unlike Nintendo, a large amount of games on the PS3 and XBox are third party titles. As game companies pay licensing fees for the right to create game on the console, any games sold adds to Sony's bottom line.

With big name titles like Final Fantasy XIII, Metal Gear Solid 4 and Gran Turisumo 5 not coming out until next year, Sony hopes that major titles like Heavenly Swords, Warhawk, Lair and the upcoming Home will help sell the PS3 before then.

Source: Business Weekly

Namco-Bandai profit up 71%

We're now hearing Japanese game companies release their full year result for the financial year ending 31 March. Namco Bandai has announced a profit of 24.2 billion Yen, up 71% on last year. Operating profit rose 18% and sales 2%.

Part of it is due to Gundam DVDs. Japanese people just never get sick and tired of that mecha. Besides DVDs, Namco Bandai also has amusement facilities (read, arcade shops).

The company forecast a slow 2008, though, due to the slow uptake of PS3 that affect their PS3 games like Gundam Musou, which sold only 300,000, way below the 500,000 they expected. As a result, the company only plans to launch 23 titles on the PS3, comparing to 24 on the XBox 360 and 37 games on the Wii.

Source: Forbes

Nintendo is making money... a shitload of it.

Nintendo has reported a jump of 77% in its net profit for the Japanese fiscal year ending 31 March 2007 due to well, you guess it, the unexpected success of Wii and the continuious demand for the DS.

Unlike Microsoft and Sony, the Wii is actually a cash cow for Nintendo. They actually make money, as opposed to Microsoft's and Sony's approach of "loss money on console, but make money on software". The current mode for Nintendo is "make money on console, and make more money on software".

We can hardly blame them. The DS has sold 24 million units worldwide last year. Hell, even my household has 2 DSes. Since launch, Nintendo has sold close to 6 million Wii. The weaker Japanese Yen also helped to boost their foreign currency earnings.

The company forecasts to sell 22 million DS and 14 million Wii this fiscal year. If they can keep up the current trend, they might even sell more.

Net profit for 2006-7 fiscal year is 174.29 billion yen, revenue rose to 966.53 billon yen. That's like... a shitload of money. And if you're got shares in Nintendo JP, you will get a dividend of 690 yen per share. Nintendo JP closed at 37,800 yen on Friday.

Source: Forbes