Nintendo takes credit for industry growth

By Oli Welsh Published 13 February, 2009

Says its sales "offset decline" of rivals in US.

Nintendo has issued a bullish press release about January's US sales figures, ignoring the month-on-month declines and focusing on huge year-on-year growth.

The company bluntly stated that the massive increase in its hardware business compared to last January was making the rest of the industry look good.

"While the videogame industry grew by USD 150 million (12 per cent) year-on-year, Nintendo's total sales grew by USD 300 million in January, offsetting declines on other platforms," said the platform holder.

Wii sales were up 148 per cent on last January, and DS sales were up 99 per cent, a remarkable performance from an ageing machine. More than 18 million Wii units have now been sold in the US alone.

Nintendo also noted that half of the software top ten was composed of first-party exclusives for its platforms - with Wii Fit, Wii Play and Mario Kart Wii occupying the top three, and the positively ancient Mario Kart DS and New Super Mario Bros still troubling the lower reaches at 7 and 8.

Nevertheless, Nintendo still slashed its profit forecast last month, due to the strength of the yen and falling demand for the Wii in Japan. Incredibly, it expects to post a 200 billion yen loss this fiscal year. If even Nintendo can't make money in 2009, who can?

Update: The information in the above paragraph is incorrect. Due to the strength of the yen relative to the dollar and euro, Nintendo expects foreign-currency losses to cost it 200 billion yen this fiscal year. It will not post an overall loss of 200 billion yen. Our apologies for any confusion caused.

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About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (25) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • LHH #1 3 years ago

    It's a shame their current software lineup is throw away shit designed for shallow teen girls and bandwagon jumpers.
    They might be leading in the hardware lineup but their software is hardly forward thinking at the moment with only a handful of interesting games still in development.
    Edited by LHH at 13/02/09 @ 10:44

  • Hunam #2 3 years ago

    They'd be right though.

  • GamesConnoisseur #3 3 years ago

    Please please Nintendo, dont neglect too much your loyal hardcore Nintendo followers, the ones who stuck by you through N64 and Gamecube years?

    Give us a tiny tidbits of highly scoring metacritic and great games? World of Goo was great, but come on pretty please give us much much more?!

  • Santino #4 3 years ago

    what is with reporting this month on month decline nonsense? its going from xmas to jan ffs! compare to jan last year for a more accurate look at things.

  • JohnnyWashnGo #5 3 years ago

    @LHH
    I kinda agree with what you are saying. Being an owner of a Wii and a DS, I would love to see more 'traditional' games being made for the systems. But every so often, I see girls on my morning train commute to work playing the DS and, you know, its gives you a nice feeling to know that these people who may have previous shunned gaming devices for being nerdy and having no appeal to them, are now feeling included in the gaming club is great.

    There is no reason to exclude anybody from the fun activity that we enjoy and have enjoyed for a long time (20+ years in my case). The more people feel that software is being developed that appeals to them, the better we all are.

    Sure, there are plenty of duff games out there but then there has always been one system which is home to the crap shovelware and cheapo tv shows tie ins. Last gen is was PS2, this time, its looks to be the Wii.

  • bionutz #6 3 years ago

    incredible about the loss this year. why is that?

  • Canyarion #7 3 years ago

    Nintendo losing money? What has the world come to? Even in the N64 and GameCube era they made respectable profits.

  • justMe #8 3 years ago

    Loss? You are kidding right?

    Maybe you mean they expect 200 billion currency relate "losses", because the yen keeps getting stronger.

    Of course, with expected sales of 1.82 trillion yen, the expected profit is still be over 300 billion yen.

  • Vanmunt #9 3 years ago

    Really want to play chrnono, but price of DS and endless shovelware puts me right of giving Ninty my money...

  • electrolite #10 3 years ago

    The statement about Nintendo making a loss simply isn't true.

    [link url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/29/nintendo-wii-sony-toshiba
    ]http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/...[/link]

    Come on Eurogamer, the quickest of Google searches and 20 seconds of reading would have found this. Things like this severely damage credibility

  • merkdot #11 3 years ago

    'ignoring the month-on-month declines' - it's January you know, that month without two national gift-giving holidays

    'loss' - there was no loss, just lower profits.

  • CallousB #12 3 years ago

    "ignoring the month-on-month declines" "200 billion yen loss"

    Awful reporting Eurogamer. Of course they will report on January this year vs last year. Name one year where sales didn't decline from December to January?

    .....and the "200 billion loss" is actually a " 200 billion foreign exchange rate loss"...they are are still expecting a 230 billion yen profit (around $2.5 billion or £1.75 billion) ..it's just they would have made a 430 billion profit if not for the strong yen.

  • spazmo #13 3 years ago

    "If even Nintendo can't make money in 2009, who can?"

    Nintendo are going to lose money or break even this year? WTF!!??

  • LHH #14 3 years ago

    @JohnnyWashnGo

    Yeah, I agree there.
    I was just mentioning that the interesting games for us so called "core" gamers are still in development. After all, it's mostly 3rd parties churning out the shovelware and who can blame them? Little effort has been earning them big money.

  • rhubarbandcustard #15 3 years ago

    I despise the wii console, in the same way I despise most mainstream hollywood kiddie friendly, diluted entertainment nonsense.

    Its entertainment that's been sanitised to an inch of its life.

    Its entertainment with no soul, no passion.

    Its gaming by committee that's designed to return maximum profit for minimal outlay.

    Thank the gaming gods for the 360 and PS3 because Nintendo hate you all.

    I shit on the Wii.

    And I shit on Nintendo.

  • Cloud-Strife #16 3 years ago

    Is there anything besides Chrono Trigger that has been a must have in months? Hopefully some good first party games incoming this year...

  • Darren #17 3 years ago

    @rhubarbandcustard - An extreme view but you do have a point.

    I, too, despair of Nintendo. They're not the same Nintendo that I knew from the 80s and 90s, the one that was committed to releasing quality games (even if they took years) than maximising profits. That's all you hear from Nintendo these days; how well they're doing financially, how many Wiis they've sold, etc., "oh, aren't we doing great?", etc., they very rarely talk about the games anymore***.

    The Wii (and I've said this numerous times before) is the most disappointing games console I've ever owned, period. I mean it even manages to make the poorly received GameCube look as if it was filled to the brim with amazing games. That my own parents love the Wii is kind of depressing really because they're not really gamers and I can see a future where games are all churned off a conveyor belt by the dozen, cheap and cheerful, for such people. :(

    *** = Likely because there aren't any!!!

  • DanDickhead #18 3 years ago

    This is appalling reporting. Oli Welsh simply doesn't have the slightest grasp of finance. Well out of his depth. Eurogamer should pull this article and republish an accurate account.

    [link url=http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/2149461/
    ]http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news...[/link]

    That's the real situation.

  • roz123 #19 3 years ago

    lol rhubarbandcustard i think exactly the same thing as you but swap the words wii with 360. The wii is far more revolutionary then any of the other consoles. The others just do by the numbers gaming.
    Whilst the wii appeals to broader demographics (not just kids).

    Also if i had to name the one game that has the most "soul". It would be Mario Galaxy.


    The reality is that the wii shits on you
    And Nintendo shits on your stuck in the past console

  • zzyzx #20 3 years ago

    Wow. No need to jump on the bandwagon, as others have done a more than adequate job of correcting.

    This is the sort of thing that happens when corporations, and the people they employ, forget what it is that they're good at. Eurogamer, report on games. For financial matters, let others do they heavy lifting and link to their work.

    Wait - what's that, you say? Posting misleading and sometimes incorrect "news," drives website traffic which generates more ad revenue? I guess you have a point, there. As long as you don't claim that your business model is fundamentally different than IGN's...

  • Zomeguy #21 3 years ago

    @rhubarbandcustard
    I don't think you can get more "mainstream hollywood" than GTA or GoW.
    I know it is very chique to diss the Wii, but you are in serious self-delusion mode.

    @Darren
    Yeah it is *really* depressing that your parents enjoy gaming on the Wii... Elitism much?

  • Malek86 #22 3 years ago

    Man, when I read that about posting losses, I was already like "naah, impossible".

    Still, forecasting 230 billions instead of 430 billions because of the exchange rate... having your profits cut in half can't be nice.

  • FooAtari #23 3 years ago

    Give us a tiny tidbits of highly scoring metacritic

    Metacritic, pretty useful. But also one of the worst things ever...

  • electrolite #24 3 years ago

    @rhubarbandcustard

    That is one of the funniest, most futile, foot-stamping tantrums I've seen in a long time. I hope your My Chemical Romance records and misguided sense of elitism help you sleep at night

    @Darren

    Nintendo have always been about aggressively making large amounts of money (and doing a good job of it at the expense of anyone who gets in the way-Atari, the toy industry) and trying to embrace the mainstream (R.O.B., bundling Tetris with Gameboy and advertising it heavily to non-gamers, Pokemon). When they deviated from this and focussed too strongly on the self-proclaimed 'hardcore' is when they lost their way

  • FooAtari #25 3 years ago

    I logged out just to read that post by custard. Personally, I don't own a Wii, nothing against it though and custard is pretty deluded

    Its gaming by committee that's designed to return maximum profit for minimal outlay.

    Thank the gaming gods for the 360 and PS3 because Nintendo hate you all.

    I've got some depressing news for you, most games are designed for maximum profit now. Developers deign games based on market research and how to score highly on metacritic.

    There are few niche games now, as making a healthy profit is simply not good enough, it must make maximum profits and sell in huge numbers else its considered a failure. And it was happening a long time before the Wii came along.

    Infact I would go as far to say there are more interesting games on the Wii. A new decent shooter like HoD is more refreshing than reading about yet another CoD game or Gears 10 year plan which bores the tits off me.
    Edited by FooAtari at 14/02/09 @ 08:34