There was a chance for other technology companies to take the spotlight Monday given the Presidents Day holiday and suspended trading in the U.S..
Unfortunately for
Nintendo,
that meant a focus on an apparently delayed timeline for the launch of its next-generation Switch videogame console.
Nintendo
stock fell 5.8% in Tokyo after Bloomberg reported that the Japanese company told some of its game-publishing partners that the successor to the Switch console will not be released until March 2025 at the earliest. It had been expected in late 2024.
Nintendo didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the report early on Monday.
Nintendo was a Barron’s stock pick last May when its American depositary receipts traded at around $10.51. They had risen to $14.30 as of Friday’s close, helped by Nintendo’s success on both the big and small screens , but a delay to the assumed timeline for the new Switch could act as a banana skin on the track to bigger gains.
Some technology companies don’t have to worry so much about the vagaries of the public market. That’s the case for
Microsoft
-backed artificial-intelligence company OpenAI, which looks to have nearly tripled its valuation in less than 10 months.
OpenAI was valued at $80 billion or more in a sale of existing shares , with the purchase led by venture-capital firm Thrive Capital, according to the New York Times, which cited people with knowledge of the deal.
That would indicate a huge rise from the ChatGPT-developer’s previous valuation of around $29 billion. OpenAI and Thrive Capital didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on the report but it fit with previous reports that employee share sales could put its valuation at somewhere between $80 billion and $90 billion.
It’s also a healthy paper profit for
Microsoft,
which has invested $13 billion for a 49% stake in OpenAI’s for-profit arm. Still, stockholders might take that with a pinch of salt as regulators have questions about the nature of Microsoft and OpenAI’s relationship.
Write to Adam Clark at [email protected]
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