Nintendo officially bigger than Sony in Japan
by Kyle Orland 
{ Jun 25th 2007 at 10:30AM }
After months of outselling Sony hardware in both North America and Japan, Nintendo has edged past the electronics giant in the one area that really matters to gamers: market capitalization! Reuters reports that Nintendo's Japanese shares have quadrupled in the past four years to a total value of 6.54 trillion yen ($52.76 billion), just ahead of Sony's 6.5 trillion yen ($52.44 billion) [update: fixed typo] market cap. That's a massive 0.6 percent lead!Before you trade in all those classic Pokémon cartridges for Nintendo stock, be aware that this sector of market is prone to swings. "This is one of those companies that is not exactly making daily necessities. One negative factor and shares could take a dive," Mizuho Securities analyst Takeshi Koyama told Reuters. And don't disregard Sony just because they're technically slightly smaller -- despite their troubles, Sony Corp. stock has risen 67 percent in the last two years, ten percent ahead of the the Nikkei average.
Previously: Nintendo closing gap on Sony's market value
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Fernando Rocker @ Jun 25th 2007 10:38AM
Any kind of publicity is good publicity.
Anam @ Jun 25th 2007 10:40AM
Silly. You don't buy stock when it's high. You wait for the Wii to die down a bit and stock prices to drop, then load up on stock, and then sell it when the Woo and TS take off.
tim hills @ Jun 25th 2007 10:53AM
Yes, now is the time to buy up Sony Stock. They are on a low point for them at the moment , but, the recent decision for Blockbuster to stock Blu Ray and the PS3 inevitable price drop, plus the killer titles due for next year,not to mention out of the box Wifi and HDMI . This will become the dominant console by 2009.
copa @ Jun 25th 2007 10:56AM
A well-deserved outcome. All you need to know about these two companies is to watch the 'Wii Want to Play' ad campaign, followed by the PS3 'Lady takes a dump' campaign.
Nintendo wants you to have fun with your friends and family, Sony wants you to work more hours at your job to afford their crap.
Shigeru Miyamoto wants to delight you, Jack Trenton wants to make you his bitch.
Howard Stringer seems to be a good guy. I think he is smart and ambitious enough to realize that Sony Gaming has to fundamentally reinvent its relationship with its customers, and to start turning this thing around.
kingofwale @ Jun 25th 2007 11:10AM
Gaming division is only a small part of Sony's electronic division. A slight bump in the gaming division will not destroy Sony as a whole, despite what some of the fanboys might want. ;)
As for Nintendo.. well, hopefully they make good tvs. :)
Jeff @ Jun 25th 2007 11:11AM
FWIW, the market cap flipped back in Sony's favor the same day. So this story's already out of date.
Market cap is meaningless anyway. All it is is funds that the company *could* draw from if it needed to. It's like a reserve gas tank, but the problem is that money needs to be paid back at some point. Most companies fund themselves completely through ongoing profits - the market cap actually matters most for young companies just after their IPO, who are usually so small that nobody pays much attention. But they're the ones actually using that money to pay for investments in their business.
Raimo @ Jun 25th 2007 11:11AM
I guess Sony's 6.5 trillion yen should rather equal to billions than to $52.44 million...
GamerG @ Jun 25th 2007 11:15AM
The funny thing is because everytime SOny sell a PS3 they are losing money evey time they sell another they get a bit smaller!!
hvnlysoldr @ Jun 25th 2007 11:15AM
So the crab flipped back before we hit its weak point. Next time Gadget, next time.
Paviel @ Jun 25th 2007 11:28AM
"I guess Sony's 6.5 trillion yen should rather equal to billions than to $52.44 million..."
The B and M keys are pretty close together... But you're right. I doubt the dollar will ever be worth 10,000 en. It certainly isn't now...
Fernando Rocker @ Jun 25th 2007 11:28AM
@kingofwale
"Gaming division is only a small part of Sony's electronic division"
Its nos just refering to the game division, its refering to the entire Sony Corporation.
JodyAnthony @ Jun 25th 2007 11:30AM
i dont care how much money any of the companies make, i just want fun games to play no matter what system they are for.
that being said, kingofwale, you are aware that that was sony as a whole (the entire company that makes a plethora of products) compared to nintendo as a whole (a company that pretty much just makes video games)
NintendoFanbot @ Jun 25th 2007 11:39AM
JodyAnthony is gaming hippy, not wanting to take sides in anything! HIPPY!
kingofwale:
"Gaming division is only a small part of Sony's electronic division. A slight bump in the gaming division will not destroy Sony as a whole, despite what some of the fanboys might want. ;)"
The Playstation brand makes the majority of Sony's income. Even if it was only the PS brand being talked about, any 'bump' in it can hurt Sony as a whole.
Zachary Hinchliffe @ Jun 25th 2007 12:48PM
NintendoFanbot, JodyAnthony takes Nintendo's side a lot. You don't pay enough attention to the comments here.
Oh, and, it's "hippie" not "hippy".
NintendoFanbot @ Jun 25th 2007 12:54PM
Dear Zachary,
I was being sarcastic. =(
David @ Jun 25th 2007 1:05PM
Oh my god!!! Nintendo is gonig to go the way of Sega!!! They are going to become a third party!!! NINTNEDO IS DOOOMMMEEEDDDD!!!! DDDDDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMEEEDD!!!!!!
vidGuy @ Jun 25th 2007 1:12PM
'And for a short moment, the clouds opened, the birds sang, and all was right in the world.'
JodyAnthony @ Jun 25th 2007 1:34PM
Zachary, it only seems like I take nintendos side a lot. I am actually a huge fan of all three of the consoles. I have better things to do than pointlessly worship some corporation
RHP @ Jun 25th 2007 1:35PM
Sony is worth over 50 billion, not million, and while the division responsible for the Playstation is historically among the most profitable for the company, they do have other divisions which are doing well, including the TV, camera, and movie divisions.
They've taken a hit as of late, because of laptop batteries, decline in their portable music business, and R&D on the Playstation 3 (Cell) and Blu-Ray. They discontinued their robot division. The Playstation 2 and PSP, however, continue to sell well.
Sony currently has about 8 billion dollars worth of debt, but about 10 billion dollars worth of cash on hand. About a year ago, they borrowed about 700 million dollars.
Sony is by no means in trouble, however they need the PS3 and Blu-Ray to be successful.
Their PS3 is off to a slow start, and Blu-Ray although they're touting is selling better than HD DVD is also off to a slow adoption. The issue with both is entry price, which I think Sony is attempting or will eventually address.
Matthew @ Jun 25th 2007 2:07PM
Well, Jeff got the first part of this right. Market cap generally doesn't mean a whole lot to us gamers unless you so happen to own stock in the company.
However, throwing it out as meaningless isn't completely true. What you can gather out of this is that the investing public is putting a great deal more confidence in Nintendo than Sony right now and that since Sony's stock is also up, that the PS3 hasn't quite become the lead brick some would think.
I'm one of the few that speculate that Sir Stringer's recent admission will translate to a price cut soon. CEO's don't admit to blunders unless they expect to do something about it.
This story isn't a 'doom-and-gloom' for Sony story, but rather the investment community's take on how Nintendo's new strategy has paid off. They are now about as 'big' as one of the top major electronics makers in Japan and they only have Video Game Hardware and Software as business lines. That's an amazing feat no matter what kind of fan boy you are and the end of my attempts at moderation on the topic.
But allow me to briefly explain my take on this as a gamer who works in the Finance industry. From an analytical point-of-view, Nintendo's cash reserves are starting to get stupid big. Nintendo is a company that puts an a lot of money into software development and R&D...without knowing for certain I would expect more so than Sony and Microsoft, after all it is Nintendo's primary business. With all that cash, software budgets can get bigger, there's venture capital for new IP's, and Nintendo can beef up their R&D budgets to incorporate more innovations into our industry. In my book, that's a good thing and something to get excited about as a gamer. Perhaps with enough capital, we can realize Shiggy's dream of playing a game 'from the inside of the TV set'.
samfish @ Jun 25th 2007 2:27PM
"I have better things to do than pointlessly worship some corporation"
No you don't!
JodyAnthony @ Jun 25th 2007 2:41PM
well, maybe not, but Im still not gonna!
ssuk @ Jun 25th 2007 2:58PM
@5: It'd be terrible if Sony itself went under, but not so bad if SCE went under. Dunno where some of... one of my friends would be without her minidisk player. Should wake up to the 21st century and get an MP3 player. Should wake up and get a god damn computer as well. =P
LuckyD @ Jun 25th 2007 7:57PM
@ RHP:
"Sony currently has about 8 billion dollars worth of debt, but about 10 billion dollars worth of cash on hand. About a year ago, they borrowed about 700 million dollars."
Compare to Nintendo who have 0 in debt and over 5 billions dollars in cash just by making video games. Pretty good if u ask me!
By the way, with how things are doing for Nintendo...how much cash to they have now???
As for MS...we know uncle Bill has an infinite amount of cash that he dont mind losing millions until the 360 turns a profit...
bm @ Jun 25th 2007 9:01PM
Hahaha, no more posts from kingofwhale then!
Glad to see we can finally shut up the "oh Sony is still infinitely mightier cuz they make other stuff" fanboys.