By Hiroko Tabuchi
Associated Press
TOKYO, Japan–Fresh off bumper earnings, Nintendo Co. ruled out a price cut for its smash hit Wii video game console Friday and announced the company will being selling the Wii in China next year.
Profits at Nintendo have surged on the runaway success of the Wii and the portable Nintendo DS machine in North America, Europe and Japan, forcing rivals Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp. to slash console prices in a desperate catch-up bid ahead of the holiday season.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said the company was struggling to meet demand of the Wii and a price cut was out of the question. The Wii sells for $249.99 in North America, €249.00 in Europe and 25,000 yen in Japan — all less than Sony’s PlayStation 3 or Microsoft’s Xbox 360.
“We’re still focusing on how to meet booming demand,” Iwata said Friday. “We’re absolutely not considering a price cut.”
Speaking at a press conference in Tokyo, Iwata said Nintendo planned to start selling Wiis in China next year, opening up a previously untapped market for the manufacturer of Pokemon and Super Mario games.
“We barely have enough Wiis to meet global demand this year. But next year, I think we can bring the Wii to China,” Iwata said.
Nintendo still needed to work with Chinese games developers to craft games suited to the market there, Iwata said.
He declined to give a sales target, but said Nintendo’s “future potential there is huge.”
Since the Wii debuted in November, Nintendo has sold 13.17 million units worldwide and expects to sell 17.50 million this fiscal year through next March.
Nintendo said Thursday that net profit more than doubled to 132.42 billion yen ($1.16 billion) in the six months to Sept. 30, and raised its profit forecast for the fiscal year to 275 billion yen ($2.40 billion) from the 245 billion yen it forecast in July.
October 26th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
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