Nintendo's Market Value Briefly Tops Sony's

GameDaily reports on news from Reuters; today for the first time Nintendo outpaced Sony's market value. Note that this isn't Sony's games wing, but the entirety of the Sony corporation. Investor confidence spurred by brisk sales of the DS and Wii pushed Nintendo (briefly) into the top ten earners in the nation of Japan, with such rarefied organizations as Honda, Toyota, and Canon. "Nintendo's shares rose to a record high 46,350 yen in the morning, increasing its overall market value to 6.57 trillion yen ($53 billion), which allowed it to surpass Sony's market capitalization for a time. The company's shares, however, finished the day a bit lower putting Nintendo back in 11th place behind Sony, but still ahead of Panasonic maker Matsushita, whose sales are over eight times larger than Nintendo's. Nintendo's market value closed at 6.39 trillion yen on Monday, just below Sony's 6.48 trillion yen."

Just Another Manic Monday...

[StikyPad]

A) Sorry, with a P/E of 31 (in times of plenty), this is a good example of an overinflated stock with unsustainable growth. (Sony's P/E is also high at 54 since investors are betting the PS3 will take off at some point -- I think they're right, but I still don't think it's a good buy.)

B) If Nintendo doesn't either start putting out some quality titles, or convincing third parties to do it for them, the Wii excitement will quickly turn to Wiimorse. I really *want* to like this console, but I haven't found a game yet that holds my attention, or my son's, with the exception of Paper Mario, and the caveat that it was too difficult for him, and too easy/tedious for anyone with a little Mario experience under their belt. And why it doesn't support either the "classic controller" (when holding the Wiimote sideways is anything but ergonomic) or motion sensing (when that's the main selling point of the console) is beyond me. Anyway, yeah. More and better games -- and soon!

Re:Time to short?

[MeanderingMind]

Hi, I have a 46" HD TV, the sound system to go with it, and an Xbox 360 to play on it. I haven't touched the Xbox except to play movies for some time. Maybe once in the past 6 months (when Armored Core 4 came out).

I also have a Wii.

The Wii is not as impressive graphically as the 360 on the HDTV, but I can not say it looks like crap. It's decent, not "Wow" but decent. The 360 and PS3 are "Wow" when it comes to graphics, I'll give them that much.

However, I play my Wii far more than my other consoles. That's not to say I spend oodles of time playing it, but it garners more of my attention.

If you want a system that looks like crap on an HDTV, get a PS2. Several of my games were literally unplayable because of how it was displayed. It was visibly different than how it would look on an SDTV to the point of being a garbled mess. Unless the game is explicitly HD, it's probably going to look terrible.

I doubt the GP fits into the "trailer trash" stereotype anymore than I do. There are far better arguments to make against the Wii than ad hominem attacks. You're intelligent enough to spell, you should be intelligent enough to come up with something more substancial than pure insults.

Re:and I remember people talking of Nintendos Demi

[mqduck]

Uh, give the revisionism a fucking rest.

No one ever talked about 'Nintendo's Demise'.

Dude, temper. I don't know where you were, but the demise of Nintendo was considered an inevitability almost the day after the Gamecube came out. Not because it sold horribly, but because all the video games happenings were on other systems. Few games, especially the interesting ones, came out on Gamecube. It seemed to guarantee that Nintendo wasn't going to do what it had to to retake the lead after the N64 sucked so hard. I certainly expected Nintendo to be gone by the next gen.

Re:Just Another Manic Monday...

[MeanderingMind]

A) Definately. It's absolutely incredible that a specialized business was able to overtake a multifaceted mega-giant, even for a moment. That said, this is probably the worst time to be investing in Nintendo stock. The Wii can be a wild success and dominate the generation and the stock still might recess down to a more sane level. If you didn't jump on the boat before the launch, it's a bad idea to hop on now. It might still go up, but it'll be amazing if it doesn't come down.

B) Assuming Metroid Prime: Corruption, Super Smash Bros: Brawl and Super Mario Galaxy don't suck Nintendo should be good for 2007. I'm actually more concerned about 2008. Any developers who jumped on the Wii train after it charged out of the station will be releasing their offerings then. Chances are a number of them will be rushed in an attempt to hit the market as quickly as possible to take advantage of the currently weak library. I'm guessing there's going to be a large amount of "crap" from the rush and the unfamiliar control system.

Re:Time to short?

[metroid composite]

I always scratch my head when people say "where are the games?"

Number of Games released in 2007 according to Gamerankings:

360: 53
PS2: 45
PSP: 44
DS: 35
Wii: 26
PS3: 17

Now, as previous people have said, systems typically have a game drought right after launch. Wii and DS are also in a funny position where they tend to get more exclusives but fewer ports due to their unique controls and crap (the big reason why PSP consistently has more releases than DS). Fact is, despite being fresh off launch, Wii is already not far from DS level game release schedules. Seems healthy enough to me.

And before anyone objects with "where are the high profile games in 2007?" ...glancing at gamerankings again I see three "Mario" games (Super Paper Mario, Mario Strikers Charged, Mario Party 8), Resident Evil 4, Warioware, a collection of EA games (Tiger Woods, Godfather, SSX), Sonic, Wii Play (say what you will, but it's the best-selling Wii game this year; possibly best-selling console game actually). For a traditionally slow stretch of the year (developers all want to release their games in November) that doesn't strike me as a weak lineup in the slightest.