Nintendo’s fortunes continue to rise thanks to Pokemon GO. An insane stock price jump means that the Big N is now worth more than $40 billion – which is higher than Sony ($38.6 billion).
Ninty’s stock value is also the highest it has been in six years, which isn’t entirely surprising given how hard the Wii U fell on its face in terms of sales.
Nintendo recently set a record for the most shares ever traded daily in Japan, with their price having doubled since the launch of Pokemon GO earlier in the month.
The beautiful irony is that they had nothing to do with Pokemon GO, which was developed by Niantic and overseen by the Pokemon Company.
Still, considering they funded the franchise all those years ago (and own a third of it), it seems only right that they get a slice of this Pokepie.
Making the biggest of big bucks is hardly new ground for Nintendo, of course. The height of the Wii craze ensured that they were the third most valued company in Japan, with a market value of over $85 billion.
Between the colossal success of Pokemon GO, the incredible reception to the NES mini and the reaction to open world adventure The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild at E3 2016, it almost seems as if Nintendo do well when they give the fans what they want – funny, that.
Since Nintendo seems to have woken up to the idea of listening to consumer demand, we can only hope that the impending NX console meets a kinder fate than the Wii U.
A new Metroid wouldn’t hurt, either.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.