Nintendo Co Ltd briefly zipped past Sony Corp in market capitalisation on Monday to become one of Japan's 10 most valuable companies as it elbows the PlayStation maker out of its decade-long dominance of the game industry.
Nintendo joined global household names such as Toyota Motor Corp, Honda Motor Co and Canon Inc on the top-10 list before its shares erased earlier gains and ended the day lower. The Kyoto-based company finished in the 11th place by market value, just above Panasonic maker Matsushita Electric Industrial Co and below Sony. Those companies, the world's largest and second-largest consumer electronics makers, both have sales more than eight times as big as Nintendo's.
"It is becoming quite clear that Nintendo is taking back its market share from Sony in the console market while well defending its stronghold of portable games," Mizuho Securities analyst Takeshi Koyama said.
Nintendo's Wii game console has outsold Sony's PlayStation 3 by three to one in Japan and by more than two to one in the United States so far this year, according to game magazine publisher Enterbrain and research firm NPD.
Demand for its DS handheld game players also far outstripped that for Sony's PlayStation Portable. Koyama said, however, that investors should watch out for a possible pull-back after two year-long bull runs.
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