Nintendo reports good Q2 2008. Expects to sell 101 million DS and 52 million Wii by March 2009
It is a good time to be Nintendo. The company can seemingly do NO wrong as it has once again shown very good numbers, even amongst the global economic downturn as Nintendo released their first half of 2008 financial results from April 2008 to September 2008.
Nintendo had a record-breaking six-month period. Profits for both the Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii were up a whopping 36% during the second quarter of 2008 from the year before!
Even though Nintendo cut it’s profits forecast 3% due to a stronger yen, things are still looking mighty good. They upped their forecasted Wii sales from 26.5 million to 27.5 million and upped DS software sales to 207 million units from 197 million.
And just in case you had any doubt that Nintendo was sitting pretty, here is President Satoru Iwata in his own words, “I think it is safe to say strong game demand is intact despite all this talk about the financial crisis.”
And that is true. Even though Sony’s 2008 profits are down, Sony’s game division was up.
Here are some interesting numbers:
* Lifetime sales of the Nintendo Wii are at 34.55 million units
* Lifetime sales of the Nintendo DS are at 84.33 million units (MORE THAN THE GAME BOY ADVANCE! Which reached lifetime sales of 81.36 million units)
* Wii Fit has sold an incredible 8.7 million units worldwide since it’s launch in Japan last December.
* Nintendogs has shipped nearly 20 million units worldwide.
* Although the DS has outsold the GBA, “Game Boy” still wins out if you combine sales of the original Game Boy with that of the Game Boy Color, where the record is set at lifetime sales of 118.69 million units.
Although things may seem to be all rosy, it isn’t ALL good news however. Shares in Nintendo have lost 59 percent since the start of the year through Wednesday, underperforming the Nikkei average .N225, which fell 46 percent.
