This should stop people from saying that Nintendo will go third party like Sega. Nintendo is very profitable in it's current form, Sega wasn't, end of story.


from www.game2extreme.com:

Nintendo sets new record in profits
SOURCE: Tokyo(AP)

June 04, 2002 - Nintendo recorded another record setting profit this year for the second year in a row. The fact that Nintendo netted 8.6 billion dollars profit while launching two new platforms is an amazing feat, even by Nintendo's own standards.

The profit increase was 10% higher then the previous years record. The last two fiscal years was a time that most analysts felt Nintendo would be the most strained. With the N64 hardware in decline and the launching of the new platforms many analysts were expecting Nintendo's profits to drop sharply.

Needless to say investors are quite happy.

Whoa! Isn't it a given that the first year of a new console's life is a write-off?

Just a thought: We'll be in a 3 console world for a long time. Competition is good.

Nintendo: Setting profit records, GBA is their cash cow, willing to wait until the GameCube becomes profitable (I'm assuming it's not yet).

MicroSoft: More money than God. Can wait 5 years until XBox is profitable (if required).

Sony: 30 million consoles sold. Not going anywhere.

For all of our petty bickering in an effort to justify that we didn't waste $200 - $300 with our console choice, the bottom line is that it's sooooooo good to have the option of choosing between 3 good consoles. Or buy 'em all.

More competition means more great games for each system.

Just to keep this in perspective:

http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/17348.html



By Jay Lyman
NewsFactor Network
April 18, 2002

Crediting sales of its Windows XP operating system, shipment of Visual Studio .NET and .NET Framework units, and the global launch of its Xbox game console, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) announced Thursday that it took in revenue of US$7.25 billion in its fiscal third quarter, resulting in a net profit of $2.74 billion, up from last year's $2.45 billion.

The Redmond, Washington-based software giant forecast similar revenue of about $7 billion and operating income of about $3 billion for next quarter, reinforcing the notion that a tech recovery may be somewhat further out than originally expected.

"We delivered another quarter of solid revenue growth and operating results that exceeded our expectations," Microsoft chief financial officer John Connors said.


uh, that's PER QUARTER folks. I dont know what the forecasts are for the entire year, but if we take 2.74 times 4 we get almost $11 BILLION / year in PROFIT.

I think that XBOX will be around awhile.......

Of course it will, but just to keep this in perspective, that profit is from all the software and hardware MS produces for the PC market, along with XBox related sales. Nintendo does games, period.

Right on Aghama. Put it into perspective when something like 1/3 of the world uses something Microsoft owns and even more so NEEDS. Hearing Nintendo post another new record for sales in the Entertainment industry is amazing by comparison.

This is true, but not necesarily a good thing. You want to have other areas of business to help smooth out the pain of starting a new console. It looks like all 3 of the "big boys" are more than able to sustain the battle.

I also agree, the more competition the better !
I hope GCN is very successful, anything to take market share from PS2

What pain? It seems like the launch benefitted Nintendo greatly.

Sony and MSOFT had considerable pain (MSOFT still has plenty of pain on its launch)

I think its great the Nintendo is doing well, but isnt it because of the GBA? I'm not sure, I would not think that they are on positive footing with the GCN yet, but I could be wrong.

Its hard to know for sure, but they have had some big sellers on the Game Cube already. Sonic Adventure 2, Luigi's Mansion, Resident Evil, and Smash Brothers Melee were big sellers. Xbox on the other hand has really had no big hit besides Halo. Another big factor is how much less the Game Cube costs to manufacture.

Nintendo did not put themselves into the big hole that Microsoft did on the Xbox (high console manufacturing costs and half a billion in marketing) so its been a much smoother ride for them. When Nintendo's big first party titles start to hit they will more than likely be in the black on the Game Cube for the rest of the time its out. I'm not saying they will make near the profits of the PS2, but they should still do well.