for people asking for them to buy another dev. they did aqquire Sor Project recently. while they didnt actually buy it they did invets money in buying shares. does anyone remember if they have a controlling stake in it?

Project Sora is a Japanese video game developer founded by former Hal Laboratory employee Masahiro Sakurai. It was formed in the year 2009 after the successful launch of Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii console. On formation of the new company Nintendo is listed as a 72% stakeholder while Sakurai's own Sora Ltd. and other 3rd parties made up the rest.

From Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Sora

Yeah they definitely own that studio.

They should save up for the next generation, both Sony and Microsoft will be trying to get the casual market.

$10,000,000,000.00 at 3% interest (above inflation) works out to $300,000,000 per year ... If that interest was re-invested into videogame development it would (probably) work out to 20 to 60 Wii games, or 50 to 150 Nintendo DS games.

I'm starting to wonder what could potentially compete with Nintendo if they could increase this cash position to $20,000,000,000 (or more) before the next generation begins ... If one console manufacturer can fully fund their entire development with the interest off of the cash they have how could anyone compete against them?

Microsoft and Apple each have 25 billion$ cash on hands, take or add a couple billions..

I doubt the cash is invested at 3% interest of higher anyway. It is probably in the safest possible investment vehicle. Nintendo isn't a financial company playing with its cash.

Finally after taxes and stuff I doubt that cash generates more than 50 million $ of interest over a year....

3% investments have very little risk. Heck, I have a savings account which pays more than that...

Not these days and for those amount of money.

10 year treasury note is probably the safest 3% return investment but with fluctuation in the bonds market they don't necessary make your cash available anytime you want. My guess is Nintendo cash is invested in a short term stuff to make it available on demand. And short term interest is quasi nill these days...

The reason I say they don't make 300 million $ of interest is that it would have appeared in the latest financial results and there weren't 300 million $ of financials profit....

If I read Nintendo's financial report right they actually have less cash on hands now than they used to 1 year ago, back in march 2008 they had around 12 billion of cash on hands...

I am pretty sure that the people in similar positions at both companies make similar money.