Topic: Nintendo Reports Profit Despite Low GameCube Sales

[WindyMan]

Nintendo has a lot of money, have sold a lot of GBAs, and has a lot of GameCube inventory.  One of these is not good for the company.

In a quarterly financial statement, Nintendo is reporting that it has made a profit of Â¥11.5 billion ($95 million) in the April-May-June period, almost all in part to the skyrocketing sales of the Game Boy Advance.  Oddly enough, this is the first time that Nintendo has disclosed its quarterly earnings report, normally waiting until the end of the year before revealing any of its financials.

In this three month span, 3.24 million GBAs and GBA SPs were sold worldwide.  That's all well and good, but in comparison to the 80,000 GameCubes sold in the same period, it's causing Nintendo's investors to worry.  The company is sticking to its goal of six million systems sold before the end of March 2004, but many feel that if Nintendo can't get rid of its excessive inventory of systems before Christmas, it won't get rid of them.

Analysts believe that a GameCube price drop is in Nintendo's near future if it hopes to reach its target of six million.  Still, Nintendo does hold a small margin over the Xbox in worldwide sales, with 9.6 million GCs and 9.4 million Xboxes sold worldwide.

[Fish]

Nintendo has a lot of money, have sold a lot of GBAs, and has a lot of GameCube inventory.  One of these is not good for the company.

In a quarterly financial statement, Nintendo is reporting that it has made a profit of Â¥11.5 billion ($95 million) in the April-May-June period, almost all in part to the skyrocketing sales of the Game Boy Advance.  Oddly enough, this is the first time that Nintendo has disclosed its quarterly earnings report, normally waiting until the end of the year before revealing any of its financials.

In this three month span, 3.24 million GBAs and GBA SPs were sold worldwide.  That's all well and good, but in comparison to the 80,000 GameCubes sold in the same period, it's causing Nintendo's investors to worry.  The company is sticking to its goal of six million systems sold before the end of March 2004, but many feel that if Nintendo can't get rid of its excessive inventory of systems before Christmas, it won't get rid of them.

Analysts believe that a GameCube price drop is in Nintendo's near future if it hopes to reach its target of six million.  Still, Nintendo does hold a small margin over the Xbox in worldwide sales, with 9.6 million GCs and 9.4 million Xboxes sold worldwide.

[mjbd]

Nintendo has a lot of money, have sold a lot of GBAs, and has a lot of GameCube inventory.  One of these is not good for the company.

In a quarterly financial statement, Nintendo is reporting that it has made a profit of Â¥11.5 billion ($95 million) in the April-May-June period, almost all in part to the skyrocketing sales of the Game Boy Advance.  Oddly enough, this is the first time that Nintendo has disclosed its quarterly earnings report, normally waiting until the end of the year before revealing any of its financials.

In this three month span, 3.24 million GBAs and GBA SPs were sold worldwide.  That's all well and good, but in comparison to the 80,000 GameCubes sold in the same period, it's causing Nintendo's investors to worry.  The company is sticking to its goal of six million systems sold before the end of March 2004, but many feel that if Nintendo can't get rid of its excessive inventory of systems before Christmas, it won't get rid of them.

Analysts believe that a GameCube price drop is in Nintendo's near future if it hopes to reach its target of six million.  Still, Nintendo does hold a small margin over the Xbox in worldwide sales, with 9.6 million GCs and 9.4 million Xboxes sold worldwide.

[Spyjuice10]

Nintendo has a lot of money, have sold a lot of GBAs, and has a lot of GameCube inventory.  One of these is not good for the company.

In a quarterly financial statement, Nintendo is reporting that it has made a profit of Â¥11.5 billion ($95 million) in the April-May-June period, almost all in part to the skyrocketing sales of the Game Boy Advance.  Oddly enough, this is the first time that Nintendo has disclosed its quarterly earnings report, normally waiting until the end of the year before revealing any of its financials.

In this three month span, 3.24 million GBAs and GBA SPs were sold worldwide.  That's all well and good, but in comparison to the 80,000 GameCubes sold in the same period, it's causing Nintendo's investors to worry.  The company is sticking to its goal of six million systems sold before the end of March 2004, but many feel that if Nintendo can't get rid of its excessive inventory of systems before Christmas, it won't get rid of them.

Analysts believe that a GameCube price drop is in Nintendo's near future if it hopes to reach its target of six million.  Still, Nintendo does hold a small margin over the Xbox in worldwide sales, with 9.6 million GCs and 9.4 million Xboxes sold worldwide.

[joshnickerson]

Nintendo has a lot of money, have sold a lot of GBAs, and has a lot of GameCube inventory.  One of these is not good for the company.

In a quarterly financial statement, Nintendo is reporting that it has made a profit of Â¥11.5 billion ($95 million) in the April-May-June period, almost all in part to the skyrocketing sales of the Game Boy Advance.  Oddly enough, this is the first time that Nintendo has disclosed its quarterly earnings report, normally waiting until the end of the year before revealing any of its financials.

In this three month span, 3.24 million GBAs and GBA SPs were sold worldwide.  That's all well and good, but in comparison to the 80,000 GameCubes sold in the same period, it's causing Nintendo's investors to worry.  The company is sticking to its goal of six million systems sold before the end of March 2004, but many feel that if Nintendo can't get rid of its excessive inventory of systems before Christmas, it won't get rid of them.

Analysts believe that a GameCube price drop is in Nintendo's near future if it hopes to reach its target of six million.  Still, Nintendo does hold a small margin over the Xbox in worldwide sales, with 9.6 million GCs and 9.4 million Xboxes sold worldwide.

[PIAC]

cool, the news bot is borked again

good and bad news though, good that the GBA is going so strong, not so good about the cube being over stocked :\a MMMMMMASSIVE price drop to like $50us a unit

[GaimeGuy]

That 80,000 statement is 80,000 SHIPPED, not SOLD.   and the number SHOULD be low: Nintendo halted GC production until the fall.  It's no surprise that so few new consoles were shipped to retailers.

[GaimeGuy]

Oh, and in case anyone's wondering WHY  they stopped production:

There was a mass overstockage  of GCs  in retailers worldwide.  Simple reason for a simple solution

[RickPowers]

Sorry, made a change to fix one problem and created another.  As my mentor Winnie The Pooh would say ... "Oh bother."

[LOUiE]

Okay, it's 800,000, not 80,000 everyone is saying.  Why would you even believe that?  Zelda came out in Q1 and in May, they were the number one selling console in the US alone.  In Japan when the GBA Player came out, they sold 60,000 cubes in that month and have been selling at least 10,000 a week since.  Someone just forgot to add a zero.

[RickPowers]

No, it's 80,000.  We report news accurately, and double-check our facts.  The number is correct.  YOUR numbers are incorrect.

[Grey Ninja]

Ermmm.... Rick, The Magic Box says that Nintendo corrected that and said that they sold 800,000 units.  Are you SURE that your numbers aren't in error?  80,000 seems way low to me.

[ruby_onix]

The thing is, since launch Nintendo has been trying to make sure there are no GameCube shortages (since shortages hurt the N64). So they've been making more than they need. Or, to phrase it another way, the GameCube has been selling less than they expected.

So apparently almost all retailers have an abundance of GameCubes on hand. In the store.

So Nintendo decided that they're essentially ahead of all the work they need to do, so they stopped making GameCubes for a quarter-year.

Then in their quarterly report (which isn't "sell through" numbers like from NPD or Famitsu) they mentioned that they shipped out 3.24 million GBAs worldwide in the last 3 months, and only 80 thousand GameCubes worldwide.

That is a really low number, so investors got worried. And sites reported on it. And assorted fanboys thought it was proof that Nintendo's turning into Sega. And other sites refused to believe that, so they figured that it had to be a typo, and started saying it must have been 800 thousand (which seems to have no basis in fact).

But it may as well have been zero GameCubes shipped, because Nintendo wasn't making any. Because they didn't need to. And that it wasn't a bad thing, but more of a way to wisely cash in on a symptom of a larger somewhat bothersome problem of of the GameCube not being grabbed up as rapidly as it obviously should be.