In Praise of Third Place

James Surowiecki on Nintendo’s place in the console market:

Nintendo, though, has not just survived out of the spotlight; it has thrived. It has five billion dollars in the bank from years of solid profits, and this past year, though it spent heavily on the launch of the Wii, it made close to a billion dollars in profit and saw its stock price rise by sixty-five per cent. Sony’s game division, by contrast, barely eked out a profit and Microsoft’s reportedly lost money. Who knew bringing up the rear could be so lucrative?

If you measure by profits instead of unit sales, Nintendo is in first place, not third.

★ Thursday, 30 November 2006