By Jason Chau
Nintendo shares surged Wednesday, as the successful launch of its new Pokémon game helped lift market sentiment.
Nintendo's stock rose as much as 11% Wednesday morning in Tokyo before paring some gains. Shares closed 8.9% higher, their biggest single-day gain in almost a year.
Wednesday's gains came after Nintendo launched its new Pokémon title "Pokémon Pokopia" for its flagship gaming console Switch 2 last week.
Morningstar director of equity research Kazunori Ito attributed the stock rally to the "huge success of 'Pokémon Pokopia.'"
The title "is an entirely new game series that no one expected to become such a huge worldwide hit. This demonstrates Nintendo's strengths that it has many popular characters and can create hits by leveraging them," Ito added.
The Switch 2's sales momentum is also surging thanks to the viral hit of the new game title, Jefferies analyst Atul Goyal wrote in a note.
Physical copies of the game have completely sold out across major U.S. retailers, with severe stock shortages pushing Amazon to raise the game's price to around $80 from $70, which is considered a rare and significant markup, said Goyal.
The success of the latest Pokémon title could help offset mounting headwinds from surging memory-chip prices.
Investor concerns have weighed on Nintendo's valuation, which has declined by more than 30% since a recent high last August.
Morningstar's Ito said the market may have been overly concerned about rising memory prices, which led to the selloff.
"A single hit game that sells 15 million-20 million for $70 more than offsets the increase in memory costs," Goyal said.
Last month, Nintendo maintained its forecasts for earnings and Switch 2 sales for the financial year ending March, despite reporting a significant jump in nine-month net profit.
Write to Jason Chau at jason.chau@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 11, 2026 02:54 ET (06:54 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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