Nintendo Co., Ltd is a Japanese multinational consumer electronics and video game company.
They are one of the world's largest video game companies by market capitalization, creating
top-selling video game franchises such as Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Pokémon.
Sony Corporation is multinational conglomerate corporation with business units that cover
consumer and professional electronics, entertainment, financial services and of course gaming.
Both are Japanese companies and both go head to head in the video game market.
But who comes out on top?
Let’s find out in this episode of The Infographics Show: Sony vs. Nintendo.
Both Nintendo and Sony are reaping the rewards from a thriving video game industry.
Nintendo's Switch is killing it with strong sales, and Sony's Playstation 4, or PS4 console
continues to dominate the console market.
Which of these two giants is the better buy in terms of features, functionality and cost
is not an easy call but by looking at what the experts are saying, we’ll do our best
to point out the pros and cons on both sides.
But before we dive into the products of these two gaming companies, let’s first look at
a little history, starting with Sony.
Sony started back in 1946, when Masaru Ibuka opened an electronics shop in a department
store building in Tokyo.
The company was started on capital of less than $2,000 and a total of 8 employees.
In May of that year Ibuka was joined by Akio Morita to establish a company called Tokyo
Tsushin Kogyo.
The company built Japan's first tape recorder, called the Type-G. Later in 1958, the company
changed its name to Sony.
The company has come a long way and today has a global reach.
It has a number of business segments including music, motion pictures, smartphones, televisions,
image sensors, game consoles, and even financial services.
The total number of employees in the Sony Group as of March 31, 2017 was approximately
128,400, but the gaming section known as Sony Interactive Entertainment, has 8,000 staff.
In March this year the company reported profits of $4.5 billion.
Annual operating profit more than doubled, while sales surged 12.4%.
So the company certainly looks to be in a healthy position…
Nintendo was founded way back in 1889, on September 23 by by Fusajiro Yamauchi.
The company originally produced handmade hanafuda playing cards and by 1963 the company had
tried several small niche businesses, even cab services and love hotels.
It wasn’t until the 1970’s that Nintendo developed into a video game company ultimately
becoming one of the most influential in the industry and Japan's third most-valuable company
with a market value of over $85 billion.
There are just over 5,000 staff at Nintendo.
That’s a little on the history.
Now let’s get to the real stuff of how they compare on gaming.
Sony's Playstation has seen steadily rising revenue since the PlayStation 4 launched in
fall 2013.
It was a sigh of relief for Sony, as the PlayStation 3 was a disaster for the first few years after
launch.
When speaking at Develop in Brighton Sony Worldwide Studios head Shuhei Yoshida admitted,
“It’s human nature.
People make mistakes.
I don’t know why.
We’re all human – we’re not perfect.
PS4 is doing so well, but we don’t forget why we’re here now.”
And he was spot on as in 2014, the year following the PS4 release, the game and network segment
revenue increased 58% to $15.2 billion, with profits also heading north to $1.25 billion.
The Playstation is key to Sony’s success and the company has a very strong ecosystem
built around its Playstation business.
In 2016, Sony sold 20 million PlayStation 4 consoles over the 12-month period, beating
the 17.7 million figure posted in its 2015 fiscal year.
Those numbers helped Sony's gaming division pull in $14.73 billion, a 6.3% increase year-over-year.
And gaming-related profit rose to roughly $1.1 billion.
These strong sales of console hardware helps Sony sell additional services to Playstation
owners, such as the Playstation Now and Playstation Plus subscription services, that allow gamers
to stream and rent games.
Now let’s take a look at Nintendo.
Nintendo is best known for game series like Mario and The Legend of Zelda, which have
seen renewed interest in 2017 following the release of Nintendo’s seventh major video
game console, the Switch.
Super Mario Run downloads hit 150 million seven months after it was first released in
September 2016, and it has now generated over $60m revenue with 77% of it coming from Apple’s
App Store.
Super Mario Run is however still one of the worst performing games in Nintendo’s initial
mobile offering, performing worse than Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp and Fire Emblem Heroes.
For comparison, Fire Emblem Heroes crossed the $300m mark this year.
Developing mobile games is something new for Nintendo, which has always been dependent
on selling games to its installed base of console and handheld device owners, but the
company is aiming to release two or three mobile games a year, and many of Nintendo’s
classic family friendly games such as Mario, Zelda, and Donkey Kong are well suited for
mobile gaming.
Meanwhile it only took 10 months for the Nintendo Switch sales to surpass sales of the Wii U's
that was on the market for 5 years.
The hybrid console's popularity has even surpassed Nintendo's original sales target, with close
to 15 million units sold in under a year.
And Business Insider reported that Nintendo is forecasting they’ll ship 20 million units
during the company's fiscal 2018 year, which would mean that the Switch would outpace both
the entire lifetime sales of both Nintendo 64 and Nintendo GameCube in only two years.
So Nintendo's future looks bright.
You can find facts, figures and arguments online for both of these gaming companies
being better than each other, but it probably comes down to your choice of preferred console
and gaming style, or even what your mates are in to playing.
Which gaming giant do you prefer?
Sony, Nintendo or a different company all together.
Let us know in the comments Also be sure to check out our other video, Xbox vs Playstation
- How Do They Compare?
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