Nintendo Co said yesterday a Wii price cut and the popularity of new games had helped to reinvigorate sales of the hit video game console over the crucial year-end shopping season.
Nintendo has been seeking to reverse a decline in sales of the Wii, which has easily outsold Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 since its launch in 2006, but has been struggling recently due to a lack of new games.
Wii sales got a boost over the crucial year-end season from the launch of the latest title in the Super Mario Bros series for the Wii, as well as Wii Sports Resort, Nintendo said.
“These strong software titles, coupled with the price reduction on Wii hardware and other factors, combined to drive sales of Wii hardware strongly in the holiday season,” a company statement said.
However, due to weak sales earlier last year, Nintendo’s net profit fell 9.4 percent to ¥192.6 billion (US2.1 billion) in the nine months to December from a year earlier as revenue fell 23 percent to ¥1.18 trillion.
Nintendo, which competes with Sony and Microsoft in the multi-billion dollar video game industry, sold 17.05 million Wii machines worldwide in the nine-month period, down from 20.52 million a year earlier.
Last September, Nintendo cut the price of the Wii by a fifth, the first such move since the family-friendly console was launched in 2006 with a motion-sensing controller that can simulate a gun, sword or golf club.
The Kyoto-based company maintained its forecast for a net profit of ¥230 billion in the full year to March this year, down 17.6 percent from the previous year.
Nintendo also kept its goal of selling 20 million Wii consoles in the year.
It has sold 67.45 million Wii machines worldwide since the launch in 2006.
The console was the fastest to reach the 50 million milestone, trouncing Sony’s more powerful PlayStation 3 which targeted mainly hardcore gamers.
However, analysts warned Nintendo was likely to face tough competition ahead from Sony and Microsoft, which both plan to launch their own motion-sensing controllers later this year in a bid to challenge the Wii’s success.
“Nintendo had better come out with a new console or else it may lose its position,” said UBS game analyst Yuki Nakayasu. “It will all depend on who comes out with a next-generation game console.”
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