http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/index.html

It looks like on May 7 - Japan time - Nintendo will announce its fiscal year results for the year ending March 2009 and it will issue projections for the year ending March 2010. I'm on the east coast of the USA - these results tend to come in about 3:30 am my time, which is ~26 hours from this post because Japan time is 12 hours ahead of east coast usa time usually.

As the most powerful videogame only company in the world, Nintendo usually releases alot of relevant information in its reports, including regional breakdowns, and what they are seeing as far as trend changes, so whether you like Nintendo or not there is alot that can be learned from reading their reports.

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For Fiscal Year 3/2009  Nintendo made the following projections:

April 2008 projection: 25m Wiis, 177m Wii games, 28m DS, 187m DS games

July 2008 projection: Unchanged

August 2008 projection: 26.5m Wiis, 186m Wii games, 30.3m DS, 197m DS games

October 2008 projection: 27.5m Wiis, 200m Wii games, 30.5m DS, 207m DS games

January 2009 projection: 26.5m Wiis, 193m Wii games, 31.5m DS, 193m DS games

For Fiscal Year 3/2008 Nintendo made the following projections:

April 2007 projection: DS HW 22m, DS SW 130m, Wii HW 14m, Wii SW 55m

July 2007 projection: DS HW 26m, DS SW 140m, Wii HW 16.5m, Wii SW 72m

October 2007 projection: DS HW 28m, DS SW 165m, Wii HW 17.5m, Wii SW 97m

January 2008 projection: DS HW 29.5m, DS SW 179m, Wii HW 18.5m, Wii SW 115m

Actual FY 3/2008 Results: DS HW 30.31m, DS SW 185.62m, Wii HW 18.61m, Wii SW 119.6m

So Nintendo beat its initial FY 3/2008 projections for DS HW by FY 3/2008 by 8.3m (!!), DS SW by 55.6m (!!),  Wii HW by 4.61m (!!), and Wii SW by 64.6m (!!)...shipping over 300m games instead of the projected 185m, and 49m units of hw instead of the projected 36m. Obviously this is what inflated Nintendo's stock price in 2007 - these were unprecedented results in gaming. Sony's best sw year was 268m games in production shipments.

For FY 3/2009, if Nintendo meets its January projections for the March 2009 year, DS hw looks like it beat Nintendo's initial estimate by over 12%, DS sw by 3% while Wii hardware is 6% above the original estimate, and Wii sw is 9% above the original estimate.

I'm expecting DS SW to be closer to 200m on retailers more aggressively restocking key games ahead of the DSi launch, and DS hw may be a bit higher than 31.5m too. Wii should come in at 26.2m and 195m I figure.

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March 2010 Projection Trends to Watch For:

- Iphone/PSP2 (PSP-Go if one of them exists!) threat to DS sales. If Nintendo sees a threat look for DS sales to be down otherwise DS should be flat or up - probably 30-33m.

- Price cuts. In Japan a PS3 price cut right now would seriously hurt Wii. Nintendo may choose to cut the Wii price in Japan to counteract this. Western markets look ok through at least this Christmas regardless of PS3/360 price cuts as unemployment rates of 8-10% don't bode well for $400 consoles with $60 games.

- Wii HW/SW. How big is Motion Plus? If Nintendo expects it to be big look for Wii to be forecast at 28m - 33m for the FY, with 200m-280m games shipped for the year. Otherwise, look for maybe 23m-28m with 175m-230m games on Wii. If Wii gets price cuts worldwide, which is unlikely, I don't think 35m or 40m would be out of the question. A price cut in Japan would assure 25m+ though.

I'm expecting 28m-30m Wiis projected, with about 230m games projected for Wii (the average Wii owner buying ~3 games in a year - it seems doable). DS I think will be up slightly on the DSi launch. Who know what they'll project though. DS has beaten its projections every year since it was launched I believe. 32.5m and 205m I think are doable, especially since DS will have a good May-July with DQIX and Kingdom Hearts, and the system should have its best western Christmas this year...which is scary since it did 3m+ in December just in the USA last year.

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Thoughts?

Can't say I agree with you yet although I don't think its an unreasonable argument if you look at the current hardware trends without 2009 software...But with software, June looks flat or up year over year since WSR will help in Japan, and the North American Wii market should be reinvigorated on the diversity of games released and new feature sets of late May to June. Punch Out and EA Active are both potentially enormous. Tiger Woods and the other early motion plus games should keep Wii elevated from the May boost, and June 2008 just wasnt that impressive for Wii so I think its in range. The main difference, to me between 2008 and 2009 is that May, June, and July look big this year, while in 2008 March, April, May were all huge. But when you factor in January and February 2009 being up over 2008 I don't think its much more than a draw through midyear. The end of the year for Wii already looks stronger in 2009 than in 2008 so I don't think sales will be down that much.