Fiscal projections. Capital budgeting. Shareholder investment. Yadda yadda yadda. Unless you like accounts and annual reports and stock markets and banks and all that, the world of corporate finance is really boring. But not today. Check this out for a completely not boring financial fact about Nintendo: Nintendo has £6.7 ($10.5) billion in the bank and, even if making big losses every year, that considerable nest egg would keep the company going until 2052. That's, like, 40 years away.
Above: Nintendo big boss Satoru Iwata and a big bag of money
Here's the exact quote taken from a feature in the latest issue of the UK's Nintendo Gamer magazine: "Buried in reams of financial data is the revelation that Nintendo have 812.8 billion Yen (£6.7/$10.5 billion) in the bank - enough for it to take a 20 billion Yen loss (£163/$257 million) every year until 2052. Then there's almost 469 billion Yen (£3.8/$6.0 billion) held in premises, equipment and investments. When that runs out - we're in the year 2075 by this point - they've got some of the most valuable intellectual property in gaming to sell off before the company goes out of business."
Taking all of those exciting numbers into account, even if the worse case scenario happens and assuming Nintendo continues to release, on average, three new Mario games a year - we've still got... 189 new Mario games ahead of us. Also, there's a pretty good chance that we'll get another F-Zero at some point within that timeframe.
So Wii sales may be plummeting like a lemming, 3DS needed a hefty price cut to counter sluggish sales and generally things have been looking a bit bleak for some time, but don't be hasty predicting the end for Nintendo. Even if it all goes properly down the toilet for the Japanese behemoth, it's got more than enough stashed away for a rainy day. In fact, it's got enough for 22,995 rainy days.
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