By Yuri Kageyama, Business Writer
TOKYO (AP) --Nintendo reported an 18% rise in net profit for its first fiscal half on Tuesday, as sales continued to get a boost from its hit Super Mario movie, and the popularity of its software for various new video games.
April-September profit at Nintendo Co., which didn't break down quarterly results, totaled nearly 271.3 billion yen ($1.8 billion), up from 230 billion yen a year earlier. Sales surged 21% to 796 billion yen ($5.3 billion).
Demand remained strong for Nintendo Switch game software, which got a healthy lift from the film starring the jumping plumber, "The Super Mario Bros. Movie."
Among the games that sold well as a result of the film was "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe," which sold 3.2 million units during the period, for cumulative sales of 57 million games, Nintendo said.
This year's Super Mario movie is one of the top-selling animation films on record, second only to "Frozen II," and the top animation film based on a video game.
Also helping lift results was the popularity of "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom" game, released in May. The latest in the hit action-adventure series, it sold 19.5 million units worldwide.
Hardware sales climbed to 6.84 million machines, including various Switch models, from 6.68 million the previous year, for total cumulative sales of 132.5 million.
Nintendo expects to sell 15 million machines for the fiscal year through March 2024, including sales over the crucial Christmas and New Year's shopping season.
Ahead of the holidays, Nintendo is planning to release the "Super Mario RPG" game software and Pokemon games.
Nintendo's software sales grew in the fiscal half to 97 million games from 95 million.
Also popular in its recent game lineup was "Pikimin 4," which went on sale in July. Nintendo is urging every household to buy several Switch consoles, not just one, so family and friends can play together.
Nintendo, based in Kyoto, started selling "Super Mario Bros. Wonder" last month, as the first totally new Super Mario series game played in side-scrolling mode in more than a decade.
It's hoping to get a boost from other software makers releasing games for Nintendo machines. "We will work to invigorate the platform by supplementing existing titles with a continuous stream of new titles and add-on content," said Nintendo.
Nintendo raised its full fiscal year profit forecast to 420 billion yen ($2.8 billion) from the 340 billion yen ($2.3 billion) estimate it gave in May. The new projection is still 3% lower than what was recorded the previous fiscal year, when at-home entertainment companies like Nintendo benefited from people staying home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The weak yen, which boosts the overseas earnings of Japanese exporters, is another plus for a company like Nintendo. It said it's expecting the U.S. dollar to trade at 140 Japanese yen, up from 130 yen. The U.S. dollar has recently been trading at about 150 yen.
ESPN and other channels return to DirecTV with a new Disney deal after a nearly 2-week blackout
DirecTV announced Saturday it had reached a deal with Walt Disney Co. that will restore ESPN and ABC-owned stations to its service after a nearly 2-week dispute that blacked out those networks for millions of viewers across the U.S.
The end of the impasse came in time for sports fans to watch ESPN's slate of college football games on DirecTV. It also will ensure that ABC's telecast of the Emmy Awards on Sunday night will be available in more major markets where viewers subscribe to DirecTV's pay service.
ABC had been unavailable since Sept. 1 on DirecTV in several markets where the station is owned by Disney. Those were located in the San Francisco Bay Area; Fresno, California; New York; Chicago; Philadelphia; Houston; and Raleigh, North Carolina.
DirecTV's 11 million subscribers abruptly lost access to ESPN, the ABC-owned stations and other Disney-owned channels such as FX and National Geographic during the Labor Day weekend in a dispute over carriage fees and programming flexibility.
Some viewers were watching the fourth round of the U.S. Open tennis tournament when ESPN suddenly went dark and others were getting ready to watch a college football showdown between LSU and Southern California.
The impasse also kept the NFL's opening game of Monday Night Football off of DirecTV's service.
Financial details of Disney's new deal with DirecTV weren't disclosed as part of Saturday's announcement. DirecTV's payments to Disney will be based on "market-based" pricing, according to the announcement about the deal.
The agreement also will give DirecTV the ability to offer Disney's video streaming services a la carte as well as in its own bundled packages. DirecTV won the right to include ESPN's forthcoming direct-to-consumer... Read More