Pachter: Nintendo To Report $3.91b In Q1 Sales, Hasn't Abandoned Core

Ahead of its second quarter financial results expected July 30th, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has predicted Nintendo will report sales above ¥421 billion ($3.91 billion) and raise yearly guidance to near ¥1,907 billion ($17.7 billion), adding that the company hasn't abandoned core gamers. Pachter's estimates are above consensus estimates of ¥400 billion ($3.72 billion) for the quarter, and yearly guidance is above the company's own current guidance of ¥1,800 billion ($16.7 billion) and ¥325 billion ($3.02 billion) in profit, with more conservative estimates for software sold, especially in the U.S. "Nintendo's recent financial performance has been spectacular and we expect this to continue in FY:09," said Pachter, "Nintendo's Wii and DS appear to be selling even better in FY:09 than in FY:08, and we believe the momentum will last through the end of FY:09." He concluded that while "some hardcore gamers were critical of Nintendo's failure to announce new Mario and Zelda games at the show... we think that Nintendo focused upon building upon its formidable lead with the mass market, and do not consider the lack of major hard core game announcements to be an abandonment of its core."