Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft: Who Ranks Better?

By Shane | August 8, 2006

Our recent Fanboy article highlighted consumer dedication to a video game console. We asked some questions to a few die hard and committed fans of Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo’s consoles and it raised some interesting points which you can view in its entirety here. With that comes this top 100 Business Week list of the most valuable brands in the world. I’m not entirely sure how old it is, but it shows the three major video game console makers performance for 2005 and 2006.

Nintendo came in ranked at #51 out of 100. Their value (in millions) for 2006 is 6,559.

Nintendo is No.1 in portable video-game consoles, but the unconventional new Wii console machine due out this autumn could be a harder sell. “

I disagree that the Wii will be a hard sell. Did they watch the now defunct E3 of 2006? Watch the video Kotaku put together which demonstrates this.

Sony came in at #26 and their value for 2006 is 11,695. Mind you Sony sells more than just video games, so they have an edge there with regards to this particular list.

Sony CEO Howard Stringer has fixed the TV biz, but other electronics products are struggling. He’s betting PlayStation 3 can help turn things around.

The Playstation 3 got quite a bashing at E3 and on the internet leading up to now. People do seem to be having second thoughts though, at least from what I’ve been reading around news sites. So who knows what will happen there.

Microsoft has the best rank coming in strong at #2 and their worth came in at 56,926. Again they have an edge over Nintendo because of course their market is much wider than just video games.

Threats from Google and Apple haven’t yet offset the power of its Windows and Office monopolies.

The XBox 360 is going strong because of their head start, strategic marketing and upcoming kick ass games. Am I wrong?

The list was composed by Interbrand which is a well-known, leading international branding consultancy specializing in brand services and activities. An explanation of their method for rating and gathering information can be found in the first paragraph of the article to help us better understand how they work. So to even qualify for the list, a brand must derive a third of its earnings outside of its home country. It’s an interesting article and chart. It goes to show that just because the oldest video game company of the 3 (Nintendo) had the lowest rating, doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the worst in video game sales, performance and fan-base. They’ve had quite their fair share of the market for a lot longer time then Sony or Microsoft did – perhaps because of how long the company has been around for as well as other factors.

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Detailed List