Nintendo Reports Earnings: Wii/DS HW Lowered, Wii/DS SW Raised - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 27 January 2011 / 3,800 Views
Nintendo's results for the nine-months to December 2010 have just arrived. As of the six-months to September 2010, Nintendo had attained revenues of 363.16b Yen. Revenue for the nine-month period however was 807.99b Yen ($9.83b), meaning that revenue for the October to December 2010 quarter was 444.83b Yen ($5.41b). In the six months to September 2010, Nintendo posted a loss of 2.011b Yen, although the September quarter was profitable. Thus the nine-month profit of 49.557b Yen ($602.9m) indicated Nintendo profit reached 51.57b Yen ($627m) for the three months ending December 2010. Forecasts for revenue and profit for the fiscal year are unchanged at 1.1 Trillion Yen ($13.38b) and 90b Yen ($1.07b) as revenue declines over the 9-month period are down 380b Yen - in line with Nintendo's forecast. The drop off in profit - 140b Yen is also in line with forecasts.
As of this latest update, Nintendo has changed some of its forecast shipment figures. Wii hardware was lowered from a projected 17.5m units to 16.0m units for the fiscal year. However, Wii software shipments were raised from a projected 158m games from April 2010 to March 2011 to 174m games a forecast increase of over 10%.** In other words, Nintendo's Wii software forecast appears to include bundled and non-bundled games from April-December (150m units) but the forecast does not include bundled games. Thus Wii software was raised from 138m based on April-Sept bundled and non-bundled software sales, and for DS hardware projections were lowered to 18.5m units from 19.5m units. However, DS software projections were raised to 120m from 110m - nearly the original level Nintendo had forecast for DS back at the start of the fiscal year. 3DS projections for the fiscal year, at 4m units of hardware and 15m units of software remain unchanged.
** EDIT: For those curious what happened to the 138m to 170m figure mentioned from earlier: Nintendo's 138m figure was based on 65m Wii games, bundles and non-bundled, shipped from April-September, plus non-bundled software over October to March 2011. Thus the 10m Wiis sold in the West over Oct 2010 to March 2011, with two games bundled for each would have added 20m Wii games. The new forecast, based on April-December 2010 data, which saw 150m Wii games, bundled and non-bundled shipped also does not include the Wii games to be shipped in the remainder of the fiscal year, now down to January-March 2011. Thus the 170m is without 4m Wii games that will be bundled in the West during Janurary to March. Nintendo had shipped 192m Wii games in the fiscal year to March 2010 bundled and non-bundled games, so the new forecast of 174m is less than a 10% drop, while the old forecast was closer to a 20% drop. See notes here and here for more information.
Through December 2010, Nintendo has shipped 84.64m Wiis worldwide and 144.59m DS systems worldwide.
As of September 2010, Nintendo shipment figures for hardware stood at the following levels. All figures are in millions of units shipped.
| Sept 10' LTD | Americas | Japan | Others | Total |
| DS | 49.28 | 31.55 | 54.75 | 135.58 |
| GB | 44.06 | 32.47 | 42.16 | 118.69 |
| GBA | 41.64 | 16.96 | 22.87 | 81.47 |
| Wii | 35.91 | 10.79 | 29.20 | 75.90 |
| NES | 34.00 | 19.35 | 8.56 | 61.91 |
| SNES | 23.35 | 17.17 | 8.58 | 49.10 |
| N64 | 20.63 | 5.54 | 6.75 | 32.92 |
| GC | 12.94 | 4.04 | 4.77 | 21.75 |
Lifetime figures for software through September 2010 were at the following levels.
| Sept 10' LTD | Americas | Others | Japan | Total |
| DS | 306.62 | 276.73 | 190.00 | 773.34 |
| Wii | 334.45 | 221.92 | 53.67 | 610.04 |
| GB | 190.61 | 153.44 | 157.06 | 501.11 |
| NES | 230.85 | 43.29 | 225.86 | 500.01 |
| SNES | 135.50 | 49.22 | 194.85 | 379.06 |
| GBA | 217.24 | 87.06 | 72.94 | 377.24 |
| N64 | 142.06 | 43.16 | 39.75 | 224.97 |
| GC | 138.48 | 42.55 | 27.53 | 208.56 |
Figures for October to December 2010 were thus 8.74 million Wiis shipped, and 9.01 DS systems shipped worldwide. Nintendo had shipped 11.65m DS systems in the December 2009 quarter, along with 11.31m Wii systems. Of those systems shipped, the Americas portions for the quarter were 4.62m Wiis and 5.00m for DS, the Others portions for the quarter were 3.47m for Wii and 2.96m for DS, while the Japan portions for the quarter were 0.66m and 1.05m for DS. Lifetime to date figures for the Americas are 40.53m for Wii, 54.28m for DS. In Others, lifetime figures are 32.67m for Wii and 57.71m for DS. Finally in Japan, the lifetime to date figures are 11.45m for Wii, and 32.60m for DS.
Over the course of January - September 2010, Nintendo had shipped 8.45m Wiis and 10.45m DS systems. With the figures of Oct-Dec now in, the figures for January - December 2010 stand at 17.15m for Wii and 19.46m for DS. January to December 2009 saw Nintendo ship 22.49m Wiis and 28.91m DS systems. Software shipments were 100.38m for Wii from January to September 2010, and jumped to 185.71m for January to December 2010. DS software shipments were 85.04m from January to September 2010 and jumped to 129.19m for January to December 2010.
From October to December 2010, Nintendo and third party publishers shipped 85.33m games for Wii worldwide, including bundled software. That is the most Wii software ever shipped in a quarter, although excluding bundled software it is nearly identical to figures on Q4 2008 and Q4 2009 - all three quarters saw about 70m non-bundled games shipped for Wii. Over the same period, video games companies shipped 44.15m games for DS worldwide down from 2009, but at a far smaller clip, only 6m, than the Q4 2008 to Q4 2009 drop which was 28m. In the Americas, Wii software shipments were 51.28m and DS software shipments were 23.15m for the quarter. For Others, the quarterly software figures were 28.39m for Wii and 14.29m for DS. Finally in Japan, the quarterly figures were 5.66m for Wii and 6.70m for DS.
Lifetime to date hardware and software figures now stand at the following levels worldwide. Figures are millions of units shipped.
| Dec 10' LTD | Americas | Japan | Others | Total |
| DS | 54.28 | 32.60 | 57.71 | 144.59 |
| GB | 44.06 | 32.47 | 42.16 | 118.69 |
| Wii | 40.53 | 11.45 | 32.67 | 84.64 |
| GBA | 41.64 | 16.96 | 22.87 | 81.47 |
| NES | 34.00 | 19.35 | 8.56 | 61.91 |
| SNES | 23.35 | 17.17 | 8.58 | 49.10 |
| N64 | 20.63 | 5.54 | 6.75 | 32.92 |
| GC | 12.94 | 4.04 | 4.77 | 21.75 |
Wii and DS are easily Nintendo's most successful hardware ever. The GB figure took 13 years to reach. Wii reached its current figure in four years, and DS reached its current figure in six.
| Dec 10' LTD | Americas | Others | Japan | Total |
| DS | 329.77 | 291.02 | 196.70 | 817.49 |
| Wii | 385.73 | 250.31 | 59.33 | 695.37 |
| GB | 190.61 | 153.44 | 157.06 | 501.11 |
| NES | 230.85 | 43.29 | 225.86 | 500.01 |
| SNES | 135.5 | 49.22 | 194.85 | 379.06 |
| GBA | 217.24 | 87.06 | 72.94 | 377.24 |
| N64 | 142.06 | 43.16 | 39.75 | 224.97 |
| GC | 138.48 | 42.55 | 27.53 | 208.56 |
Attach rates by region and worldwide are now 8.21 games shipped per Wii owner worldwide. The Americas rate is 9.51, the Others rate is 7.66, and the Japan rate is 5.18. For DS, the attach rate is now 5.65 games shipped per system worldwide. In Japan the rate is 6.03 for DS. The DS attach rate in the Americas is 6.08. Others remains the laggard for DS, with an attach rate of only 5.04, just as Japan is the laggard in attach rate for Wii. Visually, Nintendo's software ecosystems look like so through December 2010.
DS and Wii are both over 600m software markets in the West now - record figures for Nintendo. DS has finally surpassed Super Nintendo software figures in Japan as well for the quarter and continues to slowly close in on NES figures. The DS line of hardware has also surpassed GB hardware shipments in Japan, 32.60m to 32.47m as of this quarter. Wii became the first Nintendo home console to top 40m units in the Americas. More importantly, Wii software in the West is at 636m units to date, compared to 621m units of DS software in the West. Essentially, Wii software is ahead of DS software in the West even though it launched two years later and has a base of 39m fewer systems. Even without bundled software included, Wii is simply set to be much larger for software than DS ever was in the West as non-bundled Wii software has outpaced DS software by 33% in the West to date.
From April to September 2010, seven Wii games and three DS games from Nintendo had already shipped over 1m units. Nintendo will provide full figures in its supplementary earnings sheet later today or tommorow. VGC will detail the update when it arrives.
More earnings information - including Microsoft's data later today - is coming shortly. VGC will keep you informed on all the details.
Contact VGChartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com
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@ frank_kc
I wouldn't imagine the Wii needs a million or more adjustment, but DS probably does. Either way, VGC isn't too far off.
So Wii could very well top GB sales sometime in the future, it's about 34M behind it, I see it topping during 2013.
So low to Wii... and 3DS should have canibalizing DS sales also.
are talking about millions in adjustments for both DS & Wii? Sounds like each will be stripped down by a million or so.
Yes. Brett and I spoke about it and he says Wii / DS are too high in Asia and the Middle East by a bit. Americas / Japan are fine. I'm not flustered about it as I was more worried Wii software would be more like 65m somehow when VGC showed 95m sell through. At 85m it just means some old stock was cleared in addition to the newly shipped games.
Looks like Wii and DS are overtracked, though Wii probably by not much.
