http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3168126a6026,00.html
Ok, I made up the title just to irritate Dave Long, but it seems clear that most of the large gaming companies didn’t do too well this XMas.
They didn’t have a hit like they did last Christmas with Double Dash.
Nintendo didn’t have their “Halo 2” or “GTA: San Andreas” to cap off the year. That’s gotta hurt.
Why didn’t they have a new Mario ready? Or the new Zelda. That would have helped immensely. Instead, anyone who was in the market for a new console last fall/winter, had the narrowed choice between PS2 and Xbox.
They probably put a lot of energy into the DS, which sold well but probably didn’t net them big profits from the hardware.
The DS game selection was pitiful. I got a DS for my kids but there were only three games I bought for it – Sims Urbz, Madden, and Mario. I would have grabbed one or two more if there was a better selection.
Also, it’s nearly February and I don’t see any new DS games. What’s the delay?
They had a new Metroid. I’m not sure if it was ever their intent that it go head to head with GTA and Halo iterations, but I’d think that’s right up there with at least a Zelda game for Nintendo offerings. Am I overestimating the power of the Metroid franchise in thinking of it up there with Mario and Link?
I heard that Paper Mario 2 & Metroid Prime 2 were not particularly successful. I don’t need MP2 since I never finished MP, but I bought PM2 and Donkey Konga at full price & then had nothing else to buy from Nintendo, not even for my kids for Christmas. Their inability to release more than one decent game a quarter is killing them.
If they’re smart, they’ll hold the new Mario and the new Zelda as launch titles for the Revolution. GC may have run its course.
Yep. ;) Mario and Link are in a league of their own…
It’s weird that they raised DS expectations to 6 mil from 5… but cut the game sales a whoppinh 5 mil (to 10 mil, from 15)… guess most DS players are happy with Mario and Pictochat?
Or happy with playing GBA games with the better screen and speakers.
The nearly nine year layoff between Super Metroid and Fusion/Prime really demoted the franchise. But with 2 GC games, 2 GBA games and a DS game in that last two years, Nintendo seems to be trying to promote it back up.
I don’t think they really thought the DS was going to be successful. If they thought it was going to sell, they would of created more first party titles for it than a rehashed Mario. If you asked me, I think they dropped the ball on the DS because Metroid should of been a launch title and not a demo, and they should of had more titles than the paltry launch list. You can’t make money if you don’t sell da games…
K
yeah because they had a GBA all new mario ready to go right from the… oh wait… that took years…
anyways I think they adjusted the game sales down due to 90% of the games being total shit. All that ea/activ stuff is just smelly goat poo.
Would [b]have[/b]. Should [b]have[/b]. Christ.
And the DS is selling like crazy, so I’m not sure where you’re getting this “Nintendo didn’t think the DS was going to be successful” thing. Why would they release it if they didn’t think it was going to be successful? Or better yet, if they thought it would be a failure and that the solution would be more first-party launch games… why didn’t they make them?
There was. Throw out that EA trash and grab Feel the Magic. Then pick up Wario in a couple weeks.
Urbz isn’t bad… Madden is actually pretty solid. Are they naturally bad because they are made by EA?
Anyway… IGN Cube/DS’s mailbag section keeps mentioning a next-gen Gameboy that will either a) play Gamecube games or b) at least use Gamecube-caliber technology. That’d be pretty cool, huh?
yeah, that’s why the DS “isn’t” a gameboy.
I dont mind- I’ll buy whatever they make, I’m stupid like that.
Get Mr. Driller Drill Spirits for the DS. It’s one of the best games I’ve played from 2004. Wario Ware Touched comes out on the 14th. If you don’t get that, then you’re just being purposefully obtuse about the system. Zoo Keeper just came out last week and it’s very good.
Notable numbers for the people who didn’t read the article (which is based on info released on Tuesday).
sold 2.84 million of its new dual-screen DS portable game machines in the last six weeks of 2004, beating its target.
The company, which has a virtual monopoly in handheld game devices with about a 95 per cent market share, raised its DS sales forecast for the current business year by 20 per cent to 6 million units, but it cut its forecast for DS software sales to 10 million units from 15 million.
Kyoto-based Nintendo posted a group net profit of 21.31 billion yen in the third quarter, compared with a profit of 37.43 billion yen a year earlier.
21,310,000,000.00 Yen = 207,358,107.64 USD
207.4m in profit.
Nintendo cut its full-year recurring profit forecast to 120 billion yen from 150 billion yen, compared with 50.14 billion yen a year earlier. It lowered its net profit forecast to 70 billion yen from 90 billion yen, compared with 33.19 billion yen a year earlier.
Analysts expected the company to post a recurring profit of 123 billion yen and a net profit of 74.2 billion yen, according to Reuters Estimates, as they take into account an anticipated currency-related loss.
The gist of this from what I can read there is that they still expect a larger profit for the full year by about 70 billion yen compared to last year. The net profit will be about 36 billion yen higher than last year. So basically, they’re doing better than the year before. They just didn’t so as well in the 3rd quarter as they did the year before and as Matt noted, they didn’t have a Mario Kart-like this year. However, Paper Mario and Metroid Prime 2 did do well on Cube. Probably better than expected given the fact that Halo 2 and GTA:SA took the lion’s share of game sales for the final few months.
So as usual, Nintendo is still making plenty of money and the sky is not falling.
–Dave
Re: Driller Spirits, Zoo Tycoon - am I the only one who feels weird shelling out DS cartridge prices for what is essentially a minigame? It just feels like for the amount of money a DS game costs, I should be getting a more substantial game, rather than a shiny and polished iteration of what looks like awfully simplistic puzzle gaming. For 20 bucks, okay, sure - but for 30-40 bucks, I feel like I should be getting more. It just doesn’t seem like a good price, to me. I wonder if that will be a problem for the DS, or if it’s just my hangup.