Nintendo Financials -- 'company ups profit estimate'

[Acert93]

I dont' typically agree with texan as he's a pure fantoy, but he isn't totally wrong here.

What is he not totally wrong about? This is what he said:

100% of the profits that Nintendo announces comes from their handheld business. Not a penny comes from consoles- their gamecube business.

His claim is that:

1) 100% if Nintendo profits are from the handhelds

2) Not a penny of Nintendo profits came from their GameCube console business.

As far as I know Nintendo does not release this information. And since we do not know where Nintendo profits come from, making the claims he has made are unfounded. All we can do is look at the fact the GCN hardware has never been a large loss leader (and Nintendo has profited off the HW at times) and Nintendo makes a lot of money off of their own 1st and 2nd party games--plus they receive licensing fees on every game sold on their platform. Unless he, you, or someone else has some cold hard facts to back up the claim that the GCN has not contributed a penny to Nintendo profits (his claim, not mind) then all we can conclude is that his statement is a bs fanboi statement and wrong or right (no on knows, hard to disprove a negative) it is irrelevant. I guess I see no point defending his statement unless there is some actual merit based on information to back it up.

 

[Qroach]

What is he not totally wrong about? This is what he said:

That the majority of nintendo's profit is coming from the GBA instead of the gamecube. That's why i said he's not "totally" wrong. Obviously it's not 100% and he tends to exagerate.

 

[Carl B]

What is he not totally wrong about? This is what he said:

That the majority of nintendo's profit is coming from the GBA instead of the gamecube. That's why i said he's not "totally" wrong. Obviously it's not 100% and he tends to exagerate.

Still, even if it's just 1% of the 'profits,' then even that miniscule amount makes it many billions of dollars more profitable than Microsoft's console business.

 

[Qroach]

even if it's just 1% of the 'profits,' then even that miniscule amount makes it many billions of dollars more profitable than Microsoft's console business.

...and this argument invovles microsoft how? talk about taking it from one extreme to the next.

 

[Acert93]

What is he not totally wrong about? This is what he said:

That the majority of nintendo's profit is coming from the GBA instead of the gamecube. That's why i said he's not "totally" wrong. Obviously it's not 100% and he tends to exagerate.

Q, you are changing what he said. He did not say "majority of nintendo's profits". You are choosing to read that into what he said. What he is claiming is really quite clear by how he reinforces his statement:

The fact is he said that 100% of their profits were from the handheld, and
the GCN has not earned them a single penny.

Those statements clearly reinforce the same point. If he was exaggerating his use of a monetary value and a percentage clearly are misleading and reinforce his statement is not in fact but a fanboi statement. Call me stupid, but I learned in school that % and quantities (like not a single penny) were actual values. If the value is wrong, then the statement is wrong. I fail to see how you can argue those points are correct in any fashion.

Has 100% of Nintendo profits came from handhelds?
Has the GCN not earned Nintendo a single penny of profits?

If either of those answers disagree with him then he is wrong--end of debate. There is no shade of "he is not totally wrong" because he made a clear claim.

And I agree that the Xbox has nothing to do with this. I do not know why people have to drag another platform into a discussion like this. But in the same line of thinking I do not understand what unfounded statements about Nintendo's earnings have to do with anything. Xbox profits are about as relevant as some wild claim that the GCN has never made Nintendo a single penny in profit. Brand loyalty really gets old when it comes to this type of stuff :?

 

[Qroach]

Q, you are changing what he said. He did not say "majority of nintendo's profits". You are choosing to read that into what he said. What he is claiming is really quite clear by how he reinforces his statement:

Dude, please relax... like I said, he's a fan and tends to exagerate on almost all of his statements. Even xbdestroya exagerated in his statement, yet I can see where his point is coming from (hence my comment of "one extreme to the next"). So yeah I think they both had the right idea, but just chose to convey that idea in a fan-boyish way.

So YES I'm choosing to read into what he said, as taking what he says for face value is clearly a waste of time, ok?

 

[Carl B]

even if it's just 1% of the 'profits,' then even that miniscule amount makes it many billions of dollars more profitable than Microsoft's console business.

...and this argument invovles microsoft how? talk about taking it from one extreme to the next.

QRoach if my comment seems extreme to you, it is only because I am trying to emphasize the fact that as long as a product is profitable for you to develop and sell, it stands to reason that you should stay in the business. I'm not sure what points you are trying to make, but they seem to have a slight 'Nintendo should get out of consoles' bent to them. I'm simply trying to indicate that as long as Nintendo is making money, why would they leave the space?

PS - I'm not saying that you do in fact believe that Nintendo should get out of the console business - I actually don't know your views on that. But I hope in the context of this discussion, the reason I posted what I did is at least a little bit clearer.

 

[Qroach]

ok that's perfectly fine, I understand what you are saying. do I think nintendo needs to get out of consoles? hmmm tough question. To be honest I think nintendo would sell more console games is they didn't have thier own platform (i'm not talking about the DS or GBA of course).

 

[jvd]

I don't see why people claim nintendo makes barely any money on its consoles

a) nintendo doesn't loose money on the gamecube. It sells at cost


b) all first party titles sell 1million in the usa alone close to 2 million + world wide giveing them most likely 50-60million profit per game .

c) the acessories like memory cards and controllers make them tons of moeny .

d) they make moeny off the 3rd party games too


Is it as much as sony makes ? No not at all

Is it as much as nintendo makes off thier handhelds ? most likely not . But its still a crap load of money and is the reason they should stay in the busniess . IF they can launch a system each gen , sell 20 millio of those units and sell 2million + world wide of almost all thier first party games that is still alot of money rolling in

 

[Teasy]

Plus remember that if they put out their games for other systems they'd make less money per game. So they'd have to sell more copies just to make the same kind of profit from those games.

Its amazing anyone can even entertain the idea of Nintendo going third party.

 

[jvd]

Plus remember that if they put out their games for other systems they'd make less money per game. So they'd have to sell more just to make the same kind of profit.

RIght but not only that they would have to compete against many other game makers . They can also become splintered

This is what i think hurt sega so much. The fan base became divided and some sega fans went to each of the 3 other systems thus sega games selling worse than they did on the dreamcast

 

[Fox5]

100% of the profits that Nintendo announces comes from their handheld business. Not a penny comes from consoles- their gamecube business.

Do you have a source or are you just assuming?

When nintendo takes their hotly anticipated gamecube titles and then moves them to revolution then you can assume that gamecube is no longer profitable. IE: What happened to n64 during the end of its life.

Honestly, I think any company that sells millions of $99 consoles and $50 games a year should be able to make money if properly managed. There are many software companies that don't sell anywhere near the amount of games that nintendo does, and they still manage to make healthy profits.

To be honest I think nintendo would sell more console games is they didn't have thier own platform (i'm not talking about the DS or GBA of course).

You under estimate the power of fanboyism, high profile console exclusives can often sell better than multiplatform games. Sega games sold well on Dreamcast, now they sell so poorly that it's not even worth Sega producing games anymore.(look at the sales of Virtua Fighter Quest and the lack of production of Spikeout or whatever that newest xbox game is called) Right now, many nintendo fans can choose nothing but what nintendo produces(which tend to be the best on their console, along with nintendo's favored 3rd parties, nintendo doesn't seem as open with their dev kits as sony or microsoft), but if nintendo made games for ps2, then maybe the nintendo gamers would say "hey, I already have a mario game, I wanna try that jak game now".

 

[Fodder]

Sega games sold well on Dreamcast, now they sell so poorly that it's not even worth Sega producing games anymore.

I'd say that also had quite a bit to do with the quality of a lot of Sega's recent efforts. :?

 

[London Geezer]

Sega games sold well on Dreamcast, now they sell so poorly that it's not even worth Sega producing games anymore.

I'd say that also had quite a bit to do with the quality of a lot of Sega's recent efforts. :?

I agree, they don't seem to be really bothered anymore. When EA makes better games, then you know there's something wrong.

 

[OVERLORD]

Whilst you lot argue amongst yourselves Very entertaining! You obviously ignore recent statistics posted earlier RIGHT UNDER YOUR NOSES for PS2,XBOX & GC/GBA/DS.

Here it is AGAIN http://www.playmoreconsoles.com/blog.asp?UserID=66

It might educate or indeed still baffle some. But they are the facts!

 

[Acert93]

Here it is AGAIN http://www.playmoreconsoles.com/blog.asp?UserID=66

Some interesting numbers of Japanese sales.

Check out that in Japan Nintendo platforms held 46 of the top 100 spots on the list. Not too bad for a dead company. Many of these titles add up to quite a few sales.

30 of those are GBA, and 13 GCN. Considering the GCN has a lot less marketshare and has fewer games it really is not doing that bad. The 8:1 game-to-console ration is pretty healthy--basically Nintendo sells a lot of software. About 20% of their game sales in Japan are for the GCN, but console games sell at a higher price point than handheld games. While it would be nice to get numbers from the US/Europe, I think it is fair to say Nintendo sells millions of GCN games a year on a console they break even for. All this leads to my original point: It is an extreme mischaracterization to state Nintendo is not making any money from the GCN. There are almost as many GCN consoles in the market, and when you look at the 1st party games that have sold well for Nintendo (MP, MP2, SM Sunshine, SSBM, MKDD, MParty, M Tennis, Zelda, Pikmin, etc...) it is just hard to imagine them not making some good profits. The GCN is doing more than keeping shelf space with retailers and brand recognition with consumers to help the hand helds.

The numbers are a clear indication that any reports in the media of an "early death" of any Nintendo product are greatly exaggerated.

 

[Phil]

It might educate or indeed still baffle some. But they are the facts!

The only thing that baffles me is the correctness of various posters here (and myself) in that the handheld business is very important to Nintendo. It is clear that a very large part of their profits are thanks to those handheld sales:

The top 100 best-selling games in Japan for 2004 were recently compiled by sales, and games for Nintendo platforms hold 46 spots on the list, while games for the PS2 hold 51 spots, and games for the PSP hold 3 spots. However, what isn`t immediately apparent is that even though there are eight less games for Nintendo platforms on the list - they more than managed to hold their own against their largest competitor.

so wow, 3 Nintendo platforms (2 of which are handhelds) hold roughly the same amount of spots as the PS2 platform...

oh wait:

There are 30 Game Boy Advance, 13 GameCube, and 3 Nintendo DS titles on the list.

 

[London Geezer]

so wow, 3 Nintendo platforms (2 of which are handhelds) hold roughly the same amount of spots as the PS2 platform...

Well he did say those are the facts.

 

[Teasy]

so wow, 3 Nintendo platforms (2 of which are handhelds) hold roughly the same amount of spots as the PS2 platform...

Correction 3 of Nintendo's platforms hold roughly the same amount of spots as Sony's 2 platforms PS2 and PSP. If DS is included then so should PSP be included (they have basically the same time out in Japan).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

If you're going to do that, may as well look at market sectors.

Home Console :
GC : 13
PS2 : 51

Next-Gen handheld
DS : 3
PSP : 3

Previous Gen Handheld
GBA : 30

Doesn't really mean anything, like most stats. Pick and choose what you want to say and find the stats to suit. The only irrefutable, undeniable truth to all this is the assertion that

MORE CONSOLES = MORE GAMES SOLD