Nintendo breaks a Tokyo stock market record, thanks to the release of successful mobile game Pokemon GO, the announcement of the NES Classic, and other factors.
Some may not realize this, but Nintendo didn't have a direct hand in the development of Pokemon GO outside of the late, great Satoru Iwata coming up with the initial idea with Tsunekazu Ishihara. The Pokemon Company and Niantic are the entities that actually developed Pokemon GO, yet due to Nintendo's partial ownership of The Pokemon Company, the Big N has still benefited greatly from the game, breaking a Tokyo stock market record this past Friday.
Nintendo managed to sell $4.5 billion worth of shares in a single day, largely thanks to Pokemon GO's immense popularity. This is the best single day performance for a publicly traded Japanese company in the past century, with Nintendo beating huge corporations like Tokyo Electric, Softbank, and others.
Considering how popular Pokemon GO has been since the game's launch, Nintendo's remarkable stock market performance should come as no surprise. Nintendo shares began to soar just a day after Pokemon GO launched in North America, and they have now risen by over 86% since before Pokemon GO became available to the public.
This impressive financial performance has really helped turn Nintendo's recent misfortunes around. By all accounts, the Wii U was a sales failure, selling nearly 100 million less units than Nintendo anticipated, and interest in the company's 3DS handheld has been waning as well. However, thanks to Pokemon GO, Nintendo is once again in a position of serious power in the video game industry, and now has momentum that it can use to build interest in its next home console, the Nintendo NX.
Besides Pokemon GO, another reason why Nintendo's shares may be doing so well is the recently announced NES Classic Edition console. Nintendo announced the hardware for release this holiday season, and like Pokemon GO, it has used nostalgia to drum up significant public interest, with major mainstream media outlets like CNN reporting on it. If NES Classic is the holiday hit it is expected to be, Nintendo could close out 2016 in great financial shape.
Moving forward, Nintendo will likely try to bank on nostalgia even more than it has in the past, and will also ramp up its production of mobile games. If these steps help Nintendo maintain its momentum, the Nintendo NX could be the next chapter in what seems to be the company's comeback story.
Pokemon GO is available now for Android and iOS mobile devices.