E3 2011: Nintendo Stock Price Down 10% After Wii U Announcement

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It made news when Nintendo’s stock price dropped 5% on the unveiling of the Nintendo Wii U. Many folks found it thrilling that Japanese investors had lost confidence in Nintendo on the new console. Now, Nintendo’s stock price has taken another slide and went down another 5% during the week. Do you agree with the investors, will the Nintendo Wii U be a flop?

Nintendo’s stock was something of a blue chipper on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, after the Wii was launched in 2006 and the tremendous worldwide demand for that device, Nintendo’s stock price blew up some 171%. Since then, it’s come down a fair bit and has been rather flat for the past few years, hovering around a price of ¥25,000. Investors like to look for growth in a company, after all, and the stories of low attach rates and low software sales with the Wii doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the Tokyo crowd.

There had been rumors that the next Nintendo console would be “more hardcore” than the Wii U and would appeal to the core gamer crowd that buys millions of copies of Halo and Call of Duty for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Some gamers have voiced opinions on the web that the Wii U is too similar to the Wii, or that the giant controller with the touchscreen isn’t compelling to them. The Wii U is over a year away from release, so we’ll have to see how the mainstream “Bring the Wii out at a cocktail party” crowd reacts to the new Wii U console. But, some investors in Japan don’t seem to believe that Nintendo’s next console will be anything special.

Do you think the Wii U will be a success?