Nintendo and Sony shares hit records as peak holiday season approaches

[TOKYO] Nintendo had its biggest gain in more than a year in Tokyo on Thursday, as investors eyed demand for game consoles with the peak holiday season approaching.

Shares in the Kyoto-based gamemaker rose 6.6 per cent, reaching the highest level since December 2007, amid demand for its Switch console and a broader buying of Japanese gaming stocks.

Sony, which recently released its PlayStation 5 console, also reached a record, surpassing the 10,000 yen per share mark for the first time since 2001.

"Investors have their attention toward game makers amid the recent coronavirus spread and the upcoming Christmas season," said Ryuta Otsuka, a strategist at Toyo Securities Co.

Videogame makers have gained almost across the board from the surge in stay-at-home stocks this year, with gaming a chief beneficiary of changing customer habits due to the coronavirus pandemic. Software makers Capcom and Koei Tecmo Holdings both hit new highs in Tokyo Thursday.

Combined hardware and software sales in the home console market in Japan rose 5.5 per cent in November compared with the same month in 2019, SMBC Nikko analyst Eiji Maeda wrote in a note on Monday. Coronavirus cases in Japan began to increase during that month, when the PlayStation 5 and Microsoft's latest Xbox console were also both released. Tokyo was set to report a record 800 coronavirus cases on Thursday, local broadcaster NHK said.

BLOOMBERG