Nintendo Record Breaking Year As Wii Passes 50m News

Defying recent pessimism and suggestions the Wii had lost some of its steam, Nintendo today reported an increase in net sales, operating income, and net income for the fiscal year ended March 31st 2009.

Record breaking net sales for the period increased year-on-year by 9.9% to 1.84 trillion yen (£12.29 billion).  Operating income for the year stood at 555.26 billion yen (£3.71 billion), leading to a further record breaking net income of 279.09 billion yen (£1.86 billion).

Looking ahead to the current fiscal year, Nintendo expects net sales to remain largely the same at 1.8 trillion yen (£12.02 billion), with an operating income for the year ending March 31st 2010 of 490 billion yen (£3.27 billion) and a net income of 300 billion yen (£2.00 billion).

Commenting on the global financial crisis, Nintendo stood firm on the fact that the video games industry has seen less of an impact than most, remaining relatively stable despite a large decline in consumer spending.  Underlying the state of gaming in Japan, 1.61 trillion yen (£10.75 billion) of Nintendo's net sales for the year came from overseas, accounting for 87.5% of total sales.

In an update to current hardware sales, Nintendo reported that sales of the Nintendo DS during the year were 31.18 million units, bringing lifetime sales to-date of 101.78 million units, making it the fastest format to pass the 100 million mark of all-time.  Worldwide Wii sales for the period were 25.95 million units, bringing lifetime sales to-date of 50.39 million units, setting a new record to become the fastest selling home format to pass the 50 million mark.

On the software front, Pokemon Platinum notched up 3.75 million units and Kirby Super Star Ultra sold 2.36 million, despite both titles not yet being released in Europe.  Sales of the Brain Age reached 7.31 million during the fiscal year, with 31.12 million units of the franchise sold to-date.  DS titles that have passed a million sales (first and third-party) have now increased to 91 from 57 last year.

Mario Kart Wii sold 15.4 million units during the year and Animal Crossing: City Folk sold 3.38 million units.  Even the much derided Wii Music still managed to shift 2.65 million units worldwide, while the chart-topping Wii Fit selling 16.37 million units, bringing lifetime sales to 18.22 million units.  The number of Wii titles that have sold in excess of one million units now stands at 54, compared to 26 last year.

Elsewhere, Nintendo confirmed that The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks will launch in the second half of the calendar year, but refused to mention whether this was worldwide or just Japan.

Finally, in a dig to both Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo stated:

"Nintendo will strive to expand its business and increase revenue and profit by capitalizing on being the only hardware platform producer with powerful in-house software development teams."