Nintendo Co. President Satoru Iwata expects demand for Wii and DS game players to hold up this year after sales during the Black Friday shopping week increased more than the company had anticipated.
Iwata’s comments indicate Nintendo is coping better than Sony Corp. and Panasonic Corp. with the global recession that forced the world’s two largest consumer-electronics makers to slash their annual revenue forecasts. Monthly retail sales in the U.S. tumbled the most in almost four decades in November.
U.S. sales of the Wii in the week ended Nov. 29 doubled to about 800,000 consoles, Iwata said. The number of portable DS players sold rose 20 percent to around 800,000, he said.
The Wii has outsold the PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360 almost every month since its release in November 2006. Nintendo’s flagship machine led U.S. console sales in October with 803,000 units, followed by 371,000 for the Xbox 360 and 190,000 for the PS3, according to researcher NPD Group Inc.
The yen has jumped 36 percent against the euro this year and 20 percent versus the dollar, ranking it as the top performer among 16 major currencies tracked by Bloomberg.
The impact from the yen is probably “less than for rivals” because Nintendo has been buying a larger proportion of its components in dollars in recent years, the executive said. The company will adjust the share of components purchased in yen, euros and dollars to minimize costs, he said.
2 comments:
I would be curious to see if the increase in Wii sales has anything to do with families being unable to go out as much or to console kids for having to stay at home this Christmas or something. This is rather unfocused, but I would just be interested to know if the Wii's increased sales have to do with its appeal as an entertainment system specifically in a period when alternative sources of entertainment are more expensive.
I also think Wii is a substitute goods for other means of entertainment. In addition, the Wii fit sales keep increasing, in my opinion, is partly because people don't want to spend money on Gym membership and transportation to the Gym when they can do simple exercise with the Wii fit. The Nintendo company does have its reason for being confident during this economic downturn.
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