News

The Nintendo Wii is about to hit the million mark in Canada, having outdistanced its nearest competitor almost two-to-one in unit sales this year. And the video game console continues to be a hot item elsewhere, driving up Nintendo's profit.

Consumers snapped up 318,000 units of the innovative game console in the first six months of 2008, bringing total Wii unit sales in Canada to 986,200, according to NPD Group, which tracks the video game industry. An NPD spokesman said he expected the Wii to surpass one million when the July figures come in.

The Wii has more than met Nintendo's goal of attracting new gamers to the fold, with its interactive controller and imaginative use of accessories. Gamers can use the wireless Wii Remote controller as a tennis racket, hockey stick, fishing rod, weapon or in myriad other ways.

Worldwide, Nintendo sold 5.17 million Wii consoles between April and June, the company's first fiscal quarter, according to figures released yesterday. That's 1.7 million more than the same period last year.

"Nintendo has positioned Wii as 'a machine that puts smiles on surrounding people's faces,' by encouraging positive interaction among family members in the living room," Nintendo said in its first-quarter statement.

Certainly Nintendo is smiling.

Through June, Nintendo has sold 29.62 million Wiis worldwide since the console's release in November, 2006. That compares with worldwide sales of 19 million for the Xbox 360 and 14.4 million for the PlayStation 3, according to the latest count.

Less robust were sales of the Nintendo DS handheld machines, which suffered especially in Japan, the company said.

DS sales for the quarter dipped by 40,000 to 6.94 million machines compared with a year earlier. Worldwide DS sales now total 77.54 million, according to Nintendo.

Nintendo reported a first-quarter profit of ¥107.27-billion ($1.015-billion), compared with ¥80.25-billion in the same period last year.

Quarterly sales surged 24 per cent to ¥423.38-billion, Nintendo said.

Nintendo shrugged off an estimated ¥26.3-billion erosion in its quarterly sales from a strengthening yen, which gained about 15 per cent against the dollar from last year. Solid Wii sales were enough to offset the losses from an unfavourable exchange rate, Nintendo said.

The Kyoto-based company hopes to sell 25 million Wii consoles and 28 million of its handheld DS machines for the fiscal year through March, 2009.

Nintendo kept its profit forecast for the fiscal year through March, 2009, at ¥325-billion, up 26.3 per cent from the record profit racked up in the previous financial year. Its sales outlook was steady at ¥1.8-trillion, up 7.6 per cent from the previous year. 7974 (Tokyo) rose ¥2,000 to ¥57,600.