Nintendo Profits Higher Than Everything

Nintendo announced recently that, based on NPD data, Nintendo’s profit increase in January was twice that of the entire game industry: while the game industry made $150 million more than January of 2008, Nintendo made $300 million more, "offsetting declines on other platforms" according to their press release. The Nintendo DS sold nearly twice as many units as in January 2008, and 20 of the 30 best-selling games of the month were on Nintendo systems. Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo’s VP of Sales and Marketing, stated that "Nintendo’s significant contribution to January’s industry growth validates our internal research showing that Nintendo continues to expand the gaming audience."

This seems a bit like faulty logic. Nintendo is implying that if they were not around, the industry would profit $150 million less than last January, but Nintendo had sales last January as well. You’d have to  eliminate Nintendo’s numbers for both years to make any assumption like that, which they haven’t.

EDIT: After doing the math, I found that Nintendo is actually right; the rest of the industry did decline compared to last year, by $150 million.