News > Iwata: We'll beat forecasts
December 5, 2006
Content taken from Next Generation:
In an interview with Reuters, Iwata said, “We came up with the current earnings forecasts before we sold even a single unit of the Wii and when we were not so sure about the cannibalization effect between the Wii and the DS. Confidence could be too strong a word, but there is an emerging possibility [for better results]."
Current forecasts from Nintendo are for a profits increase of 60 percent with sales up 45 percent.
Iwata said some analysts had predicted that Wii and DS – both of which are aimed at the ‘expanded’ games market - might take sales from one another. Iwata said this has not been the case.
“Some analysts say the largest rival of the Wii is the DS. But if you take a look at DS sales in the United States in the Thanksgiving week, or DS sales in Japan in the week of the Wii launch, there has been little impact," he said.Meanwhile, stats for the Wii's Japanese launch have been revealed. The firm sold 370,000 units over the launch weekend, with Wii Sports - unbundled in Japan - the biggest selling game hitting around 50 percent of hardware purchasers at about 176,000 sold, according to Famitsu publisher Enterbrain. Wii Play sold around 172,000 units, while The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess sold 140,000 copies.
