Nintendo shares up 9% since Switch launch

Nintendo’s stock has risen 9.3 per cent since the debut of its new console, suggesting early sales figures have helped restore some of the confidence investors lost when the Japanese games company first revealed the console’s price.

Tokyo-listed shares in the company were up 1.2 per cent in Monday morning trading, while Tokyo’s Topix index was down 0.4 per cent. The stock is now just 0.8 per cent lower from its level before the company first gave investors a close look at the console and announced its price tag (about $300 in the US and ¥29,980 in Japan) on January 12.

Reported sales figures for the Switch have proven solid so far, if not extraordinary, with anecdotal evidence suggesting most regions are selling out of their allotments as expected.

On Tuesday Japanese video game industry magazine Famitsu reported that the console had sold 330,637 units over the first three days of sales in its home country, with sales of flagship title Zelda: Breath of the Wild topping 193,000 copies, excluding digital downloads.

Nintendo was also handed a victory by a Canadian federal court on Tuesday evening, which awarded the company C$12.76m ($9.5m) in damages in its case against a distributor of “flashcarts” popularly used to play pirated games on its portable 3DS console.

Devon Pritchard, Nintendo of America’s general counsel and senior vice president of business affairs, said:

Nintendo has an established track record that demonstrates our resolve to protect our iconic characters and franchises. We will continue to protect the creative works of our developers and vigorously enforce our intellectual property rights against those that attempt to steal or misuse them.

While the amount awarded may have little impact on the company’s bottom line, the court victory could aid the company in defending its IP in Canada, as Switch games use a cartridge-based format similar in nature to that of the 3DS (albeit with far greater capacity).