Japan’s three largest game makers plan to keep their eyes on the prize and put everything else to the side.
No one has to tell you that Nintendo’s two babies, the Wii and the DS Lite, are dominating the business of video games. The money printing consoles have showed no signs of slowing down, and the biggest game makers out there have noticed.
According to a Japanese Nikkei newspaper survey, fiscal 2007 will see a serious shift in focus for these big game developers. Namco Bandai is planning to up its count of Nintendo titles 109% to 115, and Sega looks to follow suit, bumping up their Nintendo shipments 96% to 49 titles. Capcom is also sending the Nintendo love, adding 5% more titles to ship 20 next year. The total shipment of Nintendo titles in fiscal 2007 will total 26.88 million, so there will be no bitching about a ‘lack of good Wii games’. Meanwhile, all three of these major game companies plan to cut the number of shipments for Sony’s consoles (PS3 and PSP) by 30%-40% in the same time frame. Ouch — sorry Sony.
Maybe this has something to do with the crazy Wii demand. In the United States, the Wii is outselling the PlayStation 3 two to one, and Japan has made their choice with a three to one count. This huge user based, combined with the lower development costs has game makers scrambling to hop on the train. Even Sony-friendly Square Enix says that they plan to hold off on development of future PS3 titles until the sales situation improves.
All of this has done tremendous things for Nintendo’s stock. Their stock briefly surpassed Sony’s on the Tokyo Stock Exchange for the very first time on Monday. Nintendo’s shares hit a record 46,350 yen (about $377), upping their market value to $53.4 billion, pushing this game-only company past the electronics giant.
[via Variety ]
