Nintendo Guidance Shows More Muscle

Nintendo raised its guidance again for the year ended March 31.  It won’t post the actual results until the end of April, but its Wii and DS systems have been hits for the company.  It mostly attributed the DS handheld system for the success.  The sales are being estimated now at 966 Billion Yen (US$8.1 Billion) compared to previous forecasts of 900 Billion Yen and estimates of 930 Billion Yen.  Back in January it already forecast that profits would be a record.

Separately, Sony (SNE-NYSE/ADR) is feeling some handheld envy and hasannounced $30 price cuts to $170 per unit for its PSP handheld unit.That is still $20 higher than most of the DS units and $40 higher thanthe DS Lite.

Nintendo has sold more than twice the Wii consolesin Japan as in the US, but said it has likely reached its target ofselling 6 million units so far.

Nintendo shares areunfortunately relegated to the pink sheets in the US, but in Japan theyclosed up 2.1%.  With recent Sony price cuts on the PSP and the PS3 andthe new revved-up Xbox360 from Microsoft (MSFT) that was recentlyannounced, the console wars are just getting going.  This could alsotake a different turn in calendar Q4 because of the release of Halo 3and the new Grand Theft Auto titles being released.

So far, it is no wonder that Satoru Iwata, Nintendo’s CEO, made it to Barron’s top 30 CEO’s.

Jon C. Ogg
April 5, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at [email protected]; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.