Nintendo has not missed a financial beat this generation. First the DS started things off nicely, then the Wii comes along and adds to the circle of dominating sales. But outside of a couple ‘Nintendo prints money!’ jokes, no one knows exactly how well the company has been doing, until now. Macquarie Securities analyst David Gibson took some of his free time to come up with an unofficial estimate of how much money Nintendo is making for every Wii sold.

Gibson predicts that for every Wii that Nintendo sells, the company makes a $6 profit off of the unit. To put that into perspective take a month of NPD sales on the Wii and multiply that number sold by $6 and you’ll have a clear picture of the profit the company made on the console that month. So in October, when they sold 803,000 Wiis, they theoretically made $4,818,000. Six bucks doesn’t seem like much, but it does seem to add up.

Besides that little prediction, Gibson also took the time to look at the financial states of the PS3 and Xbox 360. He has the latter just about breaking even, while the former loses money everytime a PS3 is sold. No official tally was given on just how much money the PS3 loses when sold, but losing money in any situation is never a good thing for big business.

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While Sony and Microsoft dream of turning a profit on their consoles, Nintendo is doing just that. According to a new article from Forbes, the Big N makes $6 in operating profit from every Wii unit sold. Nearly 19 million units have been sold worldwide so far during 2008, earning Nintendo a tidy $114M in profit, taking that $6-per-system figure into account. That's not the extent of the interesting numbers in the article, though.

Forbes points out that, while Nintendo is turning a profit on hardware, the fact that its top-selling software is all first party means it is losing out on serious revenue normally brought in via licensing fees. Still, according to its figures, the magazine claims that there will be in the neighborhood of 100 million more pieces of Wii software sold in 2008 (220M) than the nearest competitor, Xbox 360, at 125M (PS3 is on track for 120M). One has to wonder, though, how many of those Wii games will be snagged from a bargain bin, given recent analyst data.

Forbes: Nintendo making $6 profit on every Wii sold originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 01 Dec 2008 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We entered into the Black Friday sales period with cautious optimism, knowing that dollar for dollar, Xbox 360 offers more social entertainment value than any other console on the market. Record Black Friday sales in the U.S., coupled with our existing global install base of 25 million and an online community of more than 14 million Xbox LIVE members, have laid the groundwork for continued global sales momentum in 2009.

• Media Create report from November 17 to 24 - hardware sales picking up
• Media Create report from November 17 to 24 - new releases top the software charts
  

So I was minding my own business at the gym, jamming out to some crazy techno music on my headphones while doing some bench press reps, mindlessly watching the flat screen TV’s hovering above me. A headline peaked my curiosity as I watched the muted (it’s much better this way) morning show. Yahoo’s Top 10 Searches of 2008. Alright, these are always interesting and mildly amusing to see. So they start revealing the list, we got the usual suspects like Angelina Jolie and Lindsay Lohan, but then they got to number 5 on the list — RuneScape. Yes, RuneScape.

I guess there is something to be said about it being the only game on this list, the only game searched for more than Jessica Alba, American Idol, Angelina Jolie, Naruto and Lindsay Lohan. Truthfully, it hurts my brain to think about it. I’m not sure if this is proof that RuneScape is to be respected as a force in the MMO genre, or if it’s simply a testament of Yahoo’s users base. I’m not trying to put down RuneScape, I think it has its place in the world. However, it does strike me as being slightly odd that it is searched for this much. Lets be honest, RuneScape isn’t exactly ground breaking on any front, nor is it even notable in any single aspect of the MMO genre. Maybe the hardcore gamer inside of me doesn’t understand how a game like this could be searched for more than say, Halo, Guitar Hero or World of Warcraft. Perhaps this is that magical casual market that sells millions of games to non-hardcore gamers. That demographic that the Wii seems to have enticed. Maybe, I’m more in the minority than I think I am. Whatever the reason, lets raise our glasses and toast. To RuneScape, for being hotter than Jessica Alba, and being the only game to make it to the top 10. Congrats!

GI: Is it fair to assume that TT will work on Warner Bros IP at some point?

Nick Ricks: Well, yes - we’d be foolish not to consider some of the products in the back catalogue, but equally we’re still a small company, we’re focused, and that does give us one advantage of making very good games, because we have such a close relationship with Traveller’s Tales we can work together very quickly. There’s a good short hand between us.

If we did want to exploit lots of licenses very quickly, we think we could use that - so yes there are lots of opportunities, and we’re licking our lips at what we could do, but at the same time we need to be very guarded that making quality games for young gamers is our goal. We don’t need to rush out and produce dozens of Lego games based on Warner Bros properties.

We’re in it for the long haul, so there’s no push from Warner Bros to do that either - it’s very much business as usual, but with the comfort of knowing that we’re partnering with someone who has a real drive to become an industry leader, and have the opportunity to know there’s all these things we can exploit when the time is right.

Full interview here

Last week, MMO website TenTonHammer confirmed layoffs at Funcom’s U.S. branch.

The Norway-based developer of “Age of Conan” acknowledged the “staffing cuts,” which reportedly affected 70% of the U.S. branch in the Customer Service and Quality Assurance departments, as “part of our ongoing cost based efficiency and performance initiatives that are vital to any business.”

We followed up with Funcom about how the cuts would affect “Age of Conan” and to check on the status of Xbox 360 version of the game in development. Product manager Erling Ellingsen told us via e-mail:

“Our aim is for this to not affect development of ‘Age of Conan,’ or any of our other games, at all. We are sticking firmly to our plans. The Xbox 360 version of the game is still in production, but as before we are not committing to any specific dates. I wish I could give you more information, but I can’t at the time being.”

“Age of Conan” was released in May and the Xbox 360 version was slated for 2009.

Related Posts:
Funcom Defends ‘Age of Conan,’ Unfurls Plans To Improve Game
Funcom: Departure Of ‘Age Of Conan’ Game Director Will Make MMO More ‘Player-Centric’
Sitcom Audience Finds ‘Age Of Conan’ Hilarious

Your guide to the best (and worst) games for
this Holiday Season

Hi Friends,

  Wow! I can't believe that Thanksgiving is over and December is right around the corner. My stomach is still full from all the turkey, plus I'm eating more of it today... sandwiches, chili, scrambled eggs, oh the possibilities are endless.  Knowing what I like to eat is easy, but figuring out which game to buy, now that's a task I'll leave to the professionals. If you're like me and don't have time to read every review or download every free trial then you are going to need some help sorting through the heaps of games to get to the real gems.
 
Good thing we have trusty Lisa to play every game on Legacy Games! See below for Lisa's latest advice on which games to buy and which to avoid.

Until next time.

Have Fun!

Sophia, aka Sofun
CFO* Chief Fun Officer
Legacy Games
Sofun@legacygames.com
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