Nintendo Overtakes Sony in Market Value Thanks to Wii

Just last week, Reuters reported that, “Nintendo shot past Panasonic maker Matsushita in market value on Wednesday and closed in on Sony as investors watched it unseat Sony as unrivaled king of the game industry.” The market value of Nintendo was 6.30 trillion yen ($51 billion) at the time of the article last week, while Sony’s was 6.64 trillion yen.

It didn’t take long for Nintendo to move from #2 to #1. Despite having hundreds of electronic products on the market, from televisions, to computers, video game consoles, to games, movies, music and MP3 players, Sony is now being overtaken by Nintendo. Shares of Nintendo “rose to a record 46,350 yen, valuing the company at 6.57 trillion yen ($53 billion), and overtaking Sony’s 6.48 trillion yen capitalization in trading today,” Bloomberg reported.

“Nintendo’s strength is its ability to create a new market,” said Takeshi Koyama, an analyst with Mizuho Securities, who raised his rating on Nintendo to “moderately bullish” from “neutral.” In Japan, the PS3 trailed the Wii 5-to-1 for the month of May. In the United States, Wii sold 338,000 units for the month of May, compared to just 81,600 PS3’s and 154,900 Xbox 360’s.