Console manufacturers: who is making the most money?

[torkell]

So the various game console companies have posted their financies for the past quarter, and they look something like this:

Microsoft (gaming division)... losing tons of money
Sony (gaming division)... losing lots of money
Nintendo (the whole company is a gaming division)... making less money, but still making money


Guess which one the n00bs and fanboys (and slashdot trolls) predict will give up first? I'll give you a hint: it's the one which is currently doing best financially. That's right: Nintendo posts a decline in profits of to around 80%, and everyone thinks they're going under. Nevermind that they're the only console manufacturer actually posting a profit.

Oh, and while I'm at it: the Gamecube is not a kiddie console. Unless, of course, you think that 50-year-olds are incapable of enjoying Super Smash Bros Melee, and Resident Evil 4 is the perfect game for a 5-year-old.


Correction: Nintendo have actually only had a decline of 20%. Their current profits are 80% of the previous quarter or whatever. And apparently now's usually a quiet time for game consoles anyway. So Nintendo are currently doing very well, and are in no danger of going under.

It's amazing how you can twist a whole news report by changing one little word :P

Comments

[torkell]

Yeah, IMO Nintendo is the one company that got it right, but they've always suffered at the hands of Sony and Microsoft simply becuase those companies threw more money at advertising and football games. To give an example, Nintendo should have made an absolute killing with the Gamecube at launch (being about £70 cheaper than the other two), yet they quite quickly got relegated to 3rd place and a niche market in various stores.

I myself own a Gamecube and N64, and have no plans to get rid of either anytime soon. I've also got a gameboy pocket, gameboy colour and a gameboy advance, and I may sell on the pocket simply because it's superseded by the colour. I don't have any playstations or the xbox, and have no plans to get either. I'd like to point out that I have played on both, so this isn't simply Nintendo fanboyness. The xbox I probably won't get because I don't see any real reason to get it - I'm not a major fan of console FPS games, and there's been no games for it that really call to me. The Playstation is behind the others in terms of raw power, and besides I hate the controller for it (what idiot decided against sticking an analogue stick under your thumb). Nintendo got it right with the layout of the gamecube controller - all the main buttons and controls sit naturally under your thumbs. They've also made the controller very reliable and durable - I've bought a total of 6 controllers (including the one that came with it), of which both unofficial ones have died horribly (one got taken back a week after I got it), and of the official controllers only the one that came with the 'cube is beginning to show its age (and it still works).

There's one thing I really like about the Gamecube, and that's the whole idea behind it. If you look at the xbox it's basically a desktop computer with a custom case. Whereas the Gamecube was designed from the beginning to be a gaming console. True, it doesn't have a hard disk, it doesn't have built-in modem or ethernet, it has smaller discs, and has tiny memory cards. Then again, any game which has super-realistic textures and models as its only selling point isn't worth my time. I'm one of those strange people who actually think good gameplay is more important than individually rendering every single hair on someone's head.

To give an idea of that, some of my favourite games include Occarina of Time, Super Smash Bros (original and Melee), Worms 2, the Sonic series, Unreal Tournament (the GOTY '99 version, not the newer ones), the Myst series, and Ikaruga. None of those are particularly new games, and none of those have super-hyper-realistic engines (except for the Myst series, but they cheated by pre-rendering everything). Yet they are ones that I play time and time again. They are, quite simply, excellent games.

(sorry about the rant pleaseremove, it's not aimed at you. It's aimed at all those fanboy idiots who think quantity is more important than quality, and that case modding is the only worthwhile thing in life).