Wednesday 7 June 2006
Nintendo is anticipating a fairly painless Wii launch in terms of the impact it has on the Japanese gaming giant's earnings, while Sony expects heavy losses from the outset.
Nintendo President Satoru Iwata told a press conference that he can't "promise [Nintendo] won't have even a one yen loss" but the company is not expecting an enormous loss.
Iwata believes that if Nintendo meets its six-million-console sales target and a 17-million-software-unit sales target before March 2007, the launch will have minimal impact on the business.
This healthy business plan is in stark contrast to Sony's PlayStation 3 launch in which the company expects to be working at a £475 million operating loss in its games division due to the costs of getting enough units out to the shops. This is despite the fact that the £425 PS3 is likely to cost gamers almost three times as much as Wii at launch.
