Japan’s Nintendo has left the game console competition in the dust. The maker of the popular Wii says it sold 5.2 million units in the first quarter, a 52 percent increase from last year and double the combined sales of Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360. Nintendo’s cheaper console, its innovative games and the use of the motion-sensitive controller have helped make the Kyoto company that started out making playing cards the hottest gaming brand on the planet. Nintendo reported a net profit of 107 billion yen in the first quarter, up 34 percent from the same period in 2007.
JAPAN PRICE WAR
A new notebook price war is erupting in Japan, the Financial Times reports. The cause is the new category of small min-notebooks that sell for $300 to $500 such as the EeePC from Taiwan’s Asustek. These have limited features but are displacing pricey $3,000 subnotebooks with strong connectivity that Japan’s top computer makers have introduced. Fujitsu, Sony and Toshiba are reported to be working on equivalent inexpensive small computers to compete with the EeePC, which weights less than twp pounds, often runs Linux as the operating system instead of Windows ,and comes with the OpenOffice suite installed.
BRITAIN’S BSKYB GAINS VIEWERS, LOSES PROFITS
BSkyB, the UK satellite service, reported that it had gained 92,000 new users in its fourth quarter, bringing its customer base up to just a shade under 9 million. Analysts attributed the audience gain to the economic downturn, which has convinced consumers to stay home more and watch the tube. For the year ending June 30, the media group reported revenue of 4.95 billion pounds, up 9 percent. However, operating profits for the fiscal year were 724 million pounds, down from 815 million pounds last year. The company has already announced job cuts and said it would reduce the price of the set top box for its high definition service.
YET ANOTHER SUIT AGAINST GOOGLEItaly’s MediaSet has filed an $800 million suit against Google for unauthorized use of video clips. Sound familiar? This is a lot like the $1 billion suit Viacom filed again Google a few weeks ago, where a judge ordered Google to turn the records of viewer data over to Viacom. MediaSet’s suit was filed in the Italian courts. MediaSet is controlled by Italian Prime Minister Sylvio Berlusconi. The company’s analysis of videos on YouTube, owned by Google, found 4,643 MediaSet video clips amounting to 325 hours of video. Google has promised to create technology to find and remove copyrighted material.
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