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Nintendo Profits Again - DS, Wii, Gamecube

26th May 2006, 9:27pm
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 Nintendo's raking in the money again. Nintendo's revenue for the past year amounted to 509,249,000,000 yen (AUD$5,988,000,000 or USD$4,549,000,000), which was down 1.2% from last year. Operating profits were boosted by 10.6% to 160,759,000,000 yen (AUD$1,890,000,000 or USD$1,436,000,000), and pure profits jumped by 12.5% to 98,078,000,000 yen (AUD$1,153,000,000 or USD$875,874,000). You can argue with their systems, their ethos or their games, but damn, you can't argue with that money.

The DS and DS Lite took centre stage this year. The system has been out for just 16 months, but the company has shipped 16.73 million units worldwide, with 11.46 million of those just this fiscal year. That's 4.78 million in Japan, 2.19 million in North America and 3.76 million elsewhere (that's us!).

Nintendogs was the DS's crowning glory, with over 6.55 million units shipped worldwide. Mario Kart DS was the next most popular, at 4.22 million, and Animal Crossing: Wild World came in third with 3.56 million units. The 'Touch Generations' lineup of non-gamer or adult-flavoured titles was a big success; the totals for the three brain training games worldwide are 5.1 million units shipped (and Australia is yet to get any of them).

49.95 million pieces of DS software were shipped worldwide this fiscal year, with the total amount since launch hitting 60.44 million - 21.52 million in Japan, 16.08 million in North America and 12.35 million elsewhere (that's us!). Sure, the Gamecube took a whopping hit, shipping just 2.35 million units and 32.79 million pieces of software - a 70% drop from the last year. But we all knew that, and hey, both Mario Party 7 and Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness became million-sellers.

Looking forward, Nintendo expects to ship a total of 16 million units this year (as in, not as a grand total), and software is estimated to reach 70 million units. The Wii will be hitting stores around October, with the expectation being 6 million systems and 17 million pieces of software worldwide by April, 2007.
by Nick Schaedel » Author's Blog