Sony Corp launched a new handheld gaming device, the first to feature 3G wireless connectivity, as it battles with Nintendo’s best-selling DS and tries to fend off rising competition from smartphones and tablets.
Sony’s announcement yesterday came as Nintendo Co reported net profit plunged 74.3 percent for the nine months that ended last month. Nintendo launches its 3D version of its popular DS model next month.
Sony said the new device, which it has codenamed “NGP” for “Next Generation Portable,” will go on sale around the end of the year.
Photo: Bloomberg
It will feature 3G wireless connectivity, the first in a portable games device, and use a 5 inch OLED panel, Sony said.
That compares with 3.5 inches for a standard smartphone screen.
The device also has a back touch pad in addition to the front touch panel and a motion sensor for more intuitive use, Sony said.
With smartphones and tablets from the likes of Apple Inc eating into the market for portable gaming devices, Sony and Nintendo desperately need a blockbuster product to boost sales and profit.
Nintendo’s DS sold nearly 136 million units up to last September. Sony’s PSP has sold about 61 million.
The next-generation PSP may be closely related to a PlayStation phone that may be in the works.
If not announced this week, the PlayStation phone could be unveiled on Feb. 13 at a Sony Ericsson event in Barcelona.
Nintendo reported a steeper profit drop than analysts estimated and cut the sales forecast for its main Wii and DS players.
Net income plunged 74 percent from a year earlier to ¥49.6 billion (US$604 million) in the nine months ended on Dec. 31, Nintendo said. That missed the ¥66.7 billion average of four analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Nintendo, projecting its lowest annual profit in six years, cut the forecast for the motion-sensing Wii by 8.6 percent and the handheld DS player by 4.3 percent.
Operating profit fell 47 percent to ¥158.8 billion in the period to Dec. 31, while revenue slumped 32 percent to ¥808 billion, Nintendo said. The analysts expected ¥190 billion in operating income on ¥823.1 billion in sales.
CHIP WAR: Tariffs on Taiwanese chips would prompt companies to move their factories, but not necessarily to the US, unleashing a ‘global cross-sector tariff war’ US President Donald Trump would “shoot himself in the foot” if he follows through on his recent pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese and other foreign semiconductors entering the US, analysts said. Trump’s plans to raise tariffs on chips manufactured in Taiwan to as high as 100 percent would backfire, macroeconomist Henry Wu (吳嘉隆) said. He would “shoot himself in the foot,” Wu said on Saturday, as such economic measures would lead Taiwanese chip suppliers to pass on additional costs to their US clients and consumers, and ultimately cause another wave of inflation. Trump has claimed that Taiwan took up to
A start-up in Mexico is trying to help get a handle on one coastal city’s plastic waste problem by converting it into gasoline, diesel and other fuels. With less than 10 percent of the world’s plastics being recycled, Petgas’ idea is that rather than letting discarded plastic become waste, it can become productive again as fuel. Petgas developed a machine in the port city of Boca del Rio that uses pyrolysis, a thermodynamic process that heats plastics in the absence of oxygen, breaking it down to produce gasoline, diesel, kerosene, paraffin and coke. Petgas chief technology officer Carlos Parraguirre Diaz said that in
SUPPORT: The government said it would help firms deal with supply disruptions, after Trump signed orders imposing tariffs of 25 percent on imports from Canada and Mexico The government pledged to help companies with operations in Mexico, such as iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), shift production lines and investment if needed to deal with higher US tariffs. The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday announced measures to help local firms cope with the US tariff increases on Canada, Mexico, China and other potential areas. The ministry said that it would establish an investment and trade service center in the US to help Taiwanese firms assess the investment environment in different US states, plan supply chain relocation strategies and
Japan intends to closely monitor the impact on its currency of US President Donald Trump’s new tariffs and is worried about the international fallout from the trade imposts, Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato said. “We need to carefully see how the exchange rate and other factors will be affected and what form US monetary policy will take in the future,” Kato said yesterday in an interview with Fuji Television. Japan is very concerned about how the tariffs might impact the global economy, he added. Kato spoke as nations and firms brace for potential repercussions after Trump unleashed the first salvo of