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Nintendo's Profits Fall On Gamecube Sales
Gamasutra reports that Nintendo's sales have dropped 21% compared to last year's numbers, largely on sluggish Gamecube sales. From the article: "Although a significant fall, Nintendo remains the most consistently profitable console hardware manufacturer when also factoring in game sales, especially compared to nearest rival Microsoft, which is estimated to have lost around $4 billion on the Xbox in the last five years. Nintendo officials are sticking to full year forecasts of operating profit of ¥90 billion ($758m), net profit of ¥75 billion ($631m) and sales of ¥400 billion ($3.4bn)."
I would be really curious to know what the long term profit of the GameCube were. I know that MS lost 4 billion over the life of the X-Box, I wonder what the fina take will be on the GameCube. Despite being a disappointment for Nintendo (but not for me, I love my GC), I bet it was still made more than X-Box.. I realize of course this comes from MS's ability to sell them at a loss, but with the reported $171 dollar loss per 360, I would be curious to know how long MS will stay in the market before it needs to make some cash off their machines (maybe never?)...
I am amused that the "doomed" nintendo always manages to make some money off its machine sales, even when sold for a fraction of the price. Oh well, hopefully revolution will help give them te shot in the arm that they, and the industry, need...
... that's "profits fell", not "made a loss".
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Oh noes... a system that's near the end of its life is not selling as well any more. No kidding. At this point if I didn't have a GC at this point I'd probably be holding off for a Revolution which will have full backward compatability.
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Seems like game sales for the PS2 are still going strong. With recent releases of Soul Calibur III and God of War, they seem to be doing well.
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I applaud nintendo for being able to pull this off. In an era where console companies are losing money left and right, they are consistantly able to post a profit. I think much of this stems from innovation of their products. Even if they sometimes fail (gb printer, virtual boy, power glove) the times they hit it, and when they do they hit it big. If you remember, they are the ones who pioneered the handheld controller as an alternative to the joy stick. They also pioneered shoulder trigger buttons, analog sticks, rumble feature, OEM wireless, and are now giving a stab at a gyro based contol system.
You can call them childish or for kids all you like, but there are few people who can say they dont truely enjoy the vast majority of what nintedo has created.
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Everyone seems to forget that The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess is yet to debut, which alone will raise profits substantially. Also Mario Party 7 is virtually sold out everywhere right now and is not included in these numbers.
Nintendo has had a bit of a weak run, but it is ramping up for one hell of a send-off for the console. Profits are just fine, not record-breaking but they are doing just fine compared to some competition. Also, think of current Xbox owners they got barely 4 years and now they have nothing to look forward to without upgrading... at least Nintendo has stuck with the GC till the very end and continues to product top content. I'll take customer loyalty over profit numbers any day.
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...at least from a UK perspective - practically nowhere sells Gamecube stuff anymore. It's been evaporating from retail for over a year, by now it's pretty much specialist games shops (and even some of them appear to be dropping it, the Game in Redditch no longer sells new games[1]). Frankly, I think it's too far gone here for Nintendo to pull the Gamecube out of it's death-dive. Although The Twilight Princess will probably sell well to the people who have bought the Gamecube, but with such a small retail precence, I can't really see Nintendo shifting many more consoles.
(Isn't the UK on it's own the 3rd biggest market for videogames? )
Then again Nintendo are good with this money side of things, and they do have the handhelds as a cash-cow. They also have sensible management (who about two years ago had a revaltion that European gamers do tend to notice if a big game is released in the US months / years before a European release, strangley coinciding with the Xbox beginning to get an upper hand in the console race). I'd say they have a fair chance with their weird Revolution thingy, which seems to either be a valiant failure, or the single greatest change in gaming since [Pong / Atari2600 / NES / Megadrive / PlayStation] (or both of course).
[1] The Game in Redditch is tiny though, I guess bigger stores still sell it.
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Got a gamecube when Wind Waker came out and will get a revolution when it comes out (should be able to if it is cheaper than the others, will wait for a price drop otherwise).
And when I get my hands on a revolution I will give my gamecube to my sister who's got a 5-6 years old boy and a 3-4 year old girl with another kid in the oven and lend them some of my gamecube games (lend as I will still play them once every two or three years) and bring some with me when I visit them (those I keep for myself like Mario Kart or Super Smash Bros)
If most GC owner do something like that (assuming the BC of the Rev to be good) it could create more sales of GC games when the Rev comes out as I feel they won't feel as dated when the generation hits as the N64/PS1 games did when the current gen arrived.
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