Although final results may differ, Sony Ericsson plans to ship approximately 14 million phones during the first quarter of 2009 with an estimated ASP (average selling price) of EUR 120. Gross margin is expected to decline both year-on-year and sequentially. Net income before taxes is estimated to be a loss in the range of EUR 340 – 390 million, excluding restructuring charges in the range of EUR 10 – 20 million.

Sony Ericsson will announce its first quarter, 2009 financial results at 07.30 UK time/08.30 CET on April 17.　

Video game software sales climbed 9 percent in the month to $733.5 million while hardware sales rose 11 percent to $532.7 million, research group NPD said on Thursday.

The Wii console led the pack as the top-selling hardware device in the month, moving 753,000 units.

Cammie Dunaway, executive vice president of Nintendo America, said Wii hardware and software each rose about 75 percent on a unit basis.

“The exciting thing is, despite a soft economy, Nintendo’s business continues to grow really healthily.”

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 was the No. 2 console in the month, followed by Sony’s PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 2.

Capcom’s Street Fighter IV was the best-selling game, moving a combined 849,000 units for the Xbox and the PS3, while the Wii Fit was No. 2 at 644,000. That was followed by Wii Play and Sony’s Killzone 2.

“What it tells you about this economy is that there are a couple of categories of consumer that are just going to get what they want,” said Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter.

He said the success of Street Fighter and Wii Fit shows that the industry’s strength lies at two seemingly opposite poles: the young, hardcore male consumer and families.

“I think that what this is telling you is that guys who buy video games have no clue that we’re in a recession,” he said.

Software unit sales rose 14 percent, but the average retail price for games fell 4 percent, NPD said.

One of the gaming industry’s biggest events of the year, the Game Developer’s Conference, will take place next week in San Francisco. An address on Wednesday from Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo, will be a highlight.

(Reporting by Gabriel Madway; Editing by Gary Hill)

Nintendo reports it has sold more than 100 million handheld gaming machines since its late 2004 launch of the Nintendo DS, which inaugurated a new era of portable gaming by introducing touchscreen and voice-recognition capabilities.

The second-generation Nintendo DS Lite, which is backward compatible with the Nintendo DS and arrived in North America in June 2006, features touch input from a stylus and Wi-Fi connectivity. Both handhelds are popular among gaming aficionados worldwide.

As of year-end 2008, 83 software titles for the two devices have shipped more than one million units globally, and seven have topped the 10 million mark, Nintendo said. The company hopes to keep gamers flocking to the platform by releasing its third-generation handheld early next month in North America and Europe.

A Pair Of Eyes

Called the Nintendo DSi, the new device sports a number of improvements, including the ability to record, manipulate and play sound files, and even allows gamers to personalize their portable playing experiences. However, the most noticeable change comes from two new cameras that serve as the DSi’s eyes: One on the outer shell and one inside that becomes active when the user opens the case.

“The outer camera is there so you can take pictures of other objects or persons as you usually would with a digital camera,” said Masato Kuwahara, a member of the Nintendo DSi engineering development team. “The inside camera is for taking pictures of yourself while you play. That’s why there are two.”

The new cameras only feature 0.3-megapixel resolution, but Kuwahara says that’s equivalent to 640×480 pixels, sufficient for the gaming tasks at hand. “You can capture images at a resolution 2.5 times that of the length and width of the DS screen,” he said.

Recession Resistant?

The sound quality of the DSi has received a boost in comparison with the DS Lite by an upgrade to the IC responsible for the new machine’s sound output. The handheld, which was introduced in Japan last November, also features an SD slot for memory cards and sports a slightly thinner form factor than earlier models.

Nintendo also has increased the size of the device’s liquid-crystal screen from 3.0 inches to 3.25 inches. “If you see it on its own, it isn’t easy to tell the difference, but if you’re someone who’s used to playing the DS Lite, and then you take the Nintendo DSi system in your hands, you’ll realize it immediately,” Kuwahara said.

The Nintendo DSi aims to help keep the company’s gaming growth on an upward trajectory at a time when most other consumer device makers are struggling to stay afloat in a recession. According to comScore, the second fastest-growing online sales category during last year’s holiday season was video games, consoles and accessories, which grew 14 percent.

More recently, NPD Group said gaming sales in January rose a robust 17 percent year-over-year. The 510,000 sales of the Nintendo DS were exceeded only by the 679,000 Wii consoles shipped during the month. Additionally, NPD Group said combined video-game software sales in 2008 in the world’s three largest gaming markets rose 11 percent year-over-year to 409.9 million.