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In the $30 billion video game industry, die-hard fans tend to take sides. It
only takes a brief tour of the blogosphere to see just how sharp the divisions
are. Backers of Sony’s (SNE) PlayStation 3 gleefully heap derision on Nintendo’s (NTDOY) Wii as a novelty toy, while fans of the Xbox 360 gush
about Microsoft’s (MSFT) superiority in online gaming.
But investors have been offering the Nintendo camp a reason to brag. The
company’s stock price has risen 45% this year—almost twice that of Sony’s—and on
June 25 hit a 52-week high. In mid-afternoon trading on Monday, Nintendo’s
shares rose 1.5%, temporarily boosting the company’s market capitalization to
$53 billion. For a fleeting moment—until its shares turned lower for the day—the
Kyoto company was worth more than Sony. Even after Nintendo’s share price
retreated a bit, the company’s market cap is just 1% smaller than Sony’s.
Wii’s Broad Appeal
That’s all the more shocking because Sony, with its empire of movies, music,
games, and consumer electronics, and its staff of 100,000, raked in $61 billion
last fiscal year—eight times the $7.8 billion of Nintendo.
The reason for the stock’s popularity among investors is no secret. Ever
since the company launched the Wii last November the living-room gaming console
has sold out in stores worldwide. Credit the Wii’s low price—at $250, hundreds
less than rival machines—and its innovative motion-sensing remote controller
which players can point like a gun, thrust like a sword, or swing like a golf
club. That has helped reel in ordinary consumers who might not normally consider
buying a gaming machine.
The Wii also appears to be benefiting from Nintendo officials’ gamble on less
powerful chips and other hardware. Because of that move software developers can
churn out more games for the Wii, at bargain rates. While many developers say
they have to spend between $10 million and $20 million to create a single game
for the Xbox 360 or PS3, making a Wii game often requires just half that amount.
The result: Nintendo dominates the ranking of top 20 games in the U.S. and in
other major markets, analysts say.
A Lopsided Lead in Sales
Sales figures show just how lopsided the competition has become. In May,
Nintendo sold 338,000 Wii machines in the U.S.—the world’s largest gaming
market—more than four times the 81,600 PlayStation 3s that Sony sold and double
Microsoft’s Xbox 360 tally of 154,900, according to NPD
Group. In Japan, the story is much the same with the Wii’s monthly sales
topping both the PS3’s and Xbox 360’s. (As of the Mar. 31 fiscal yearend,
Nintendo had shipped 5.8 million Wiis vs. 5.5 Sony PS3s and 10.4 million
Microsoft Xbox 360s.)
Don’t expect Nintendo to lose momentum anytime soon, analysts say. In a note
to investors released last month, Macquarie
Securities’ analyst David Gibson had a 12-month share-price target of 50,000
yen ($404). He also said he expects sales of the two-year-old DS portable
console to continue rising in Europe and the U.S., as Nintendo adds to its
"brain training" games and digital tutorials for languages. To promote those
games, the company has signed up Oscar-winning actress Nicole Kidman to star in
new advertisements.
Meanwhile, demand for the Wii is likely to keep growing. Macquarie analyst
Gibson jacked up his forecasts for Wii shipments over the next two years after
the company confirmed it was accelerating output to keep apace with demand. This
fiscal year, he figures Nintendo will ship 17.8 million units, instead of his
earlier estimate for 14.2 million, and 19 million next year, from 16.8 million
earlier.
That compares to a JPMorgan Chase (JPM) forecast for PS3 shipments of 11 million this year and 16
million next year. No doubt Nintendo’s top brass will be plotting to keep that
gap as wide as possible.
