Nintendo Claims It Still Beats Rivals, Even If Evidence Says Otherwise

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Apr 28, 2:45AM EDT · Published Jun 3, 4:26AM EDT

Nintendo says it is doing remarkable well, especially in America. Recent data from the industry show that sales of the company’s Wii have slowed considerably. Sony (SNE) and Microsoft (MSFT) have released products meant specifically to chip away at Nintendo’s market share.

Nintendo’s management wants the press to forget about all of that.

According to Reuters, the head of Nintendo’s US operations said that his company’s sales are up 19% so far this year, while the industry is off 4%. Nintendo’s measure for success is vague. It defines revenue “as sales of Nintendo-related gaming hardware, software and accessories from the Japanese company and some of its third-party vendors.” Based on that assessment, a lot of the money that Nintendo is including in “sales” does not go into the company’s pocket.

Nintendo seems intent on skirting the point that Microsoft and Sony have learned a great deal from the success of the Wii and DSi. There have replicated many features of the consoles and appear to be willing to cut price, at least selectively, to pick up business.

Nintendo may still be in first place in the video game market, but research firms that track video game sales show that its lead is shrinking and that its competition has come up with formulas to successfully pick up business that Nintendo needs to remain in its No.1 spot.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.