DS Design = Nintendo Profits

There's nothing but good news in Nintendo's world right now, as the success of the DS leads to a more profitable financial year than they'd initially expected. From the article: "The company has re-estimated a net profit of 95 billion yen ($807 million) for the year ended March 31, compared with its previous forecast of $637 million. Last year the firm took £739 million." To get an idea of why the DS is so successful, Gamespot has a breakdown of an interview with the DS Engineers.

Comments

YEN, USD, & GBP

[recursiv]

These are hard for me to compare.

Re:YEN, USD, & GBP

[sehryan]

new net profit estimate: $807million
previous net profit estimate: $637million
previous year: $1.29billion

I would actually guess the pound sign is actually supposed to be a dollar sign, which would indicate a small increase in profits from last year, versus a much larger decrease.

Details

[gormanly]

Nintendo's 3rd quarter earnings report has more details.

Not bad at all

[Traiklin]

Not bad for a company many people figured would be out of the games buisness after the gamecube & GBA.

Once Sony announced the PSP all I ever say was "Nintendo is doomed!" "Sony's going to pwn their asses!" and so on and so forth, yet every article about the PSP & DS the DS is ALWAYS beating the PSP, simple reason to Nintendo has always made the system for cheap but not TO cheap.

no console has sold for more then $199.99 (I might be mistaken on the ones that came with a game, but back in the 80's with the NES my parents got my sister and me the NES with Mario, Duck Hunt & Track & Field (or whatever it was called) with the light gun and power pad for $199.99, same with the SNES when it was released with 2 controllers & Super Mario World) even their handheld systems sell for cheap (The DS is the only one to start off at $149.99 and is basically their most expensive system).

in the end Nintendo is usually posting profits for the year (their quarter profits are hit and miss though) while Microsoft and Sony (who are big on overloading a system with a lot of extra features that usually don't need to be there in the end) post losses almost every single time (though their end of year profits are usually up).

not bad for a company a good chuck of people thought would be gone after the gamecube.

Re:Not bad at all

[edwdig]

in the end Nintendo is usually posting profits for the year (their quarter profits are hit and miss though)

That's putting it a little lightly. Nintendo has only had one unprofitable quarter ever since going public, and has always been profitable for the year. That one quarter Nintendo was unprofitable was due to the US dollar dropping in value substantially compared to the Yen. Nintendo always invests profits in the currency it was earned in, which in the overall scheme limits their risk from currency fluctuations, even if it did hurt them that quarter.

Nintendo Deserves It

[dancingmad]

I live outside of Osaka and I got my DS Lite a few weeks after launch (by stumbiling across a late shipment at Tsutaya). I got mine on a Friday night at 10 p.m. or so and there was a shelf full of Lites and old DSes. By the next afternoon there was 1 old-model, silver left.

The machine is a marvel. It's sexy like an Apple machine (it matches my iBook and iPod) but far more durable. It's like Apple aesthetics combined with Nintendo's "make-sure-it-takes-a-beating" engineering (indeed, their machines have been amazingly resilient and the DS Lite is no exception.

The prices of Lites are coming down (you can get a used one for the same price as a new one these days) but they are still somewhat hard to find, especially in places like Akihabara (I was there on vacation a few weeks ago and every store said they were sold out) and Den-Den Town in Osaka. I live out in the boonies (compared to Osaka proper, anyway), so I was able to snag one.

The games are great - some great Japan only titles like Dragon Quest Slime 2 and Jump and stuff like Animal Crossing. People here love this machine. I am hoping the Revolution will have the same kind of success.