For a couple of weeks after the appointment of Tatsumi Kimishima we kept an eye on Nintendo share prices, because we're nerdy about that. After a number of consecutive days of line graphs going down following the news of the appointment we wondered why this was - written on 29th September - especially as Kimishima-san and the structural changes in Nintendo can certainly be interpreted as positive steps. We wrote about the vagaries of financial market trends, the emphasis on potential rather than profits and various other areas.
And, you know what? Shares have done nothing but increase in the working days since. One in the eye for us! Not that we were writing against Nintendo but, still, a shift in momentum that's interesting for the right reasons.
It's certainly our policy to try and accentuate the positives, so here it is, a week of improved share value that happily means this writer was barking up the wrong tree hours after putting an article live. That low point highlighted in the last month's share prices below is when we decided it was a topic we wanted to tackle, and you can see what's happened since.
Closing at 21,420 Yen on 5th October, Nintendo has so far recovered to the level from when Kimishima-san was appointed - back to square one.If the upward trajectory continues that will naturally be welcomed by the company.
So, what's prompted this? Well, as we've highlighted before natural market swings play their part, though on 2nd October (possibly earlier on the inside within investor circles) a well respected analyst stated that we should expect the unexpected of Nintendo's first mobile game, and soon.
It's well established that Nintendo's share value norm being over 20,000 Yen was largely driven by the company's DeNA deal and planned move onto smart devices. If indeed talk is getting around among investors that the first project isn't far away, perhaps some even know what it is, perhaps that's contributing notably to this upswing.
As for the unexpected - well, by its very nature it's hard to guess what that could be. We have a niggling feeling that a Pikmin game is on the cards - it's potentially perfectly suited to smart device economies, with strategy games being hugely popular on tablets and phones. Oh, and we know it's close to completion. It'd certainly count as a surprise as everyone has been assuming Mario would be in the title of the first DeNA project; could that be a big twist?
It's Nintendo, so anything's possible, but chatter around an impending Nintendo game on iOS and Android is certainly what many investors would want to hear.
In any case, it's our renewed quest to try and report positives as we would negatives, as the web has enough controversies to keep itself going. We shared thoughts on a downward trend after Kimishima-san took over, and it's only fair and right we consider the exact opposite effect. Even if its timing left this writer wishing he'd devoted time to a different topic on 29th September.
Nintendo, at least in the financial market, is moving in the right direction once again.
Comments 25
Dooooooooomed !!!
I can't wait to find out what it is,got a feeling we'll know by the end of the week.
@kingofthesofa http://i.imgur.com/gj4tz.gif
This is good news!
I just want new announcements of all the stuff they've been doing. They had announced nothing major since E3. I'm tired of reading through rumors and speculation and business stuff
Haha you are so fair Thomas XD
Know what, I'm nerdy at it, too!
Nice to see a positive Nintendo article. Really hope there's a direct this week. We need something to talk about.
No pressure on the first mobile game's reveal then...
I just want a Nintendo Direct...
And the Hyrule N3DS on Europe.
I just hoping the big reveal is NOT a series of NES Black Box games for mobile . . . .
I dunno, I'd think a Mario smartphone game would be more likely than anything else.
I really hate investor sometime if every upward trends is caused by mobile games. Good for Nintendo, but slightly worrying for fans. But who knows? Nintendo also announced 1 million sales for SMM at Sep 30th, so that could be a contributing factor too.
Definitely hoping we get a Direct soon. Even if it's just a game-specific Direct for something like Smash Bros or Xenoblade, anything would suffice right now. I should point out that last year after E3 we didn't get a general Direct until early November.
Big thing is that outside of Smash DLC, the new membership service, and the first DeNA mobile game there's not that much to cover as far as the rest of the year goes. The only other things they could talk about that aren't next year's stuff are new trailers for holiday games (amiibo Festival, Mario Tennis, Yokai Watch, Pokemon SMD) or digital-only stuff like indies, small games (SNES Remix?), and VC releases.
A Direct would definitely need to cover Q1 2016 and possibly Q2 stuff for the most part.
In the mean time we're mostly going to have to play the waiting game during this period of transition. At least there's upcoming CoroCoro scans to keep us Pokemon fans occupied. That Pokemon Z announcement would be nice right about now...
Edit: Oh, I just remembered that September 30th marked the end of the financial quarter, so the financial results and investor's briefing should be coming soon. That'll give us something to talk about.
I'm concerned about three things.
Firstly is the IP being on Mobile itself. If its something like FE being there, that is bad news because the characters are what make the series unique to begin with. If they do something like microtransactions like one character per use is like 0.95$ or something, that can really ruin the experience big time.
Second, if a game that we long waited shows up on the phone and not on the actual consoles, that's disappointing because I love playing games with buttons in mind even if the game feels like it can only be experienced through touchscreen.
Last but not least is what OS are they going to focus on. Android seems to be the reasonable one to approach because of it being open source and the fact that its easier to get compared to IOS. If they do it for both, its going to be a problem managing to run the game as smooth as possible. Speaking of which, that's another problem. The smoothness. Each phone or pad runs differently kind of like PC so making games run smooth is another thing to keep in mind.
Boy, if Pikmin 4 is a mobile game... Let's just say I'll be disappointed.
Investors are probably also hoping that Kimishima can lead NX away from the problems that plagued 3DS and Wii U. But with so little known about the new platform, many are worried that Nintendo might fumble again.
Pikmin 4 is not going to be a mobile game. No main-series game is going to phones.
Yes, share went up because of the same reason it went down. It's the market.
Nintendo is doomed!!!!!!!
I know that this is not a finance website but...
What has the rest of the Japanese stock market been doing? Could it be that it was falling for most of September and has recently started to pick up? Shocker - a Japanese company moves with the Japanese market? Well, I never...
PS4 price cut coming in NA apparently... so, Wii U price cut will do what to stocks? Yeah, I don't know either.
Haha, good timing NL!
Interesting two articles but just a few factors to add to this data.
The markets as a whole tend to be fairly volatile so the trends down and back up could be as much to do with the markets dropping and then recovering from the China mini crash a few weeks ago.
Also times of year certain industries do better. Christmas on its way so any company that makes product that sells as gifts tend to see increases in share prices towards 4th quarter.
One other thing to note is investment is to do with a company's profile as a whole. Nintendo are stable as a firm but its fair to say they're not growing any bigger in the next few years.
Which leads to the last point, if you look at Nintendo's share price of the last 5 years, while its gone up and down with trends, they're historically highest price in 2011 was around 22,000 yen. That's basically where they are right now. So in 5 years the company has held steady stock wise.
Pikmin 4 cannot be a mobile game, for god's sake. Mobile is not the place for Nintendo's flagship titles, it's the place for spin-offs of Nintendo's IP.
I'm guessing it might be some sort of Animal Crossing spin-off or maybe some game adapted from Nintendo Land.
Global markets are up over the past few days, as the US missed its employment growth target, leaving investor's to believe the world's largest economy is catching a cold. This was then assumed to lead to stimulus worldwide by Sovereign Banks, in order to simulate global economic growth. I have stocks that have popped over 10% as a result, with no noticeable news, in just the past 3 days.
Nintendo Life should stick to grading the games of Nintendo & the overall gaming market, and should leave the stock market alone. You will get egg on your face, you are clearly not experts. In reverse, I wouldn't want CNBC to start reviewing videogames either! Stick to your strengths, the great video game reviews and analysis you typically provide.
Mobile suxx...
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