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Nintendo's profit collapses 74 percent

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 29 Jan 2011 12:50 User comments (17)

Nintendo's profit collapses 74 percent Nintendo has reported their earnings for the 9-month period ended December 2010, and net profit fell a whopping 74 percent, to ¥49.56 billion ($600 million USD) from ¥192.60 billion ($2.34 billion) in the same period in 2009.
The gaming company attributed the drop to a wildly stronger yen and a lack of compelling software titles for its DS and Wii consoles.

Overall revenue fell 32 percent to ¥807.99 billion ($9.8 billion) from ¥1.182 trillion ($14.4 billion).

Because Nintendo makes about 80 percent of its sales outside of Japan, most of its cash assets are held in foreign currency, like pounds, USD and euros. As the yen continues to gain strength, the value of those currencies decreases, forcing Nintendo to book appraisal losses.



Those losses remain as "paper losses" until the company converts back to yen, but they still hurt the books on a "net" basis.

Outside of the yen, software and hardware sales fell, as well.

Wii sales fell 20 percent to 13.72 million and DS sales collapsed 33 percent to 15.70 million.

Nintendo hopes to halt the slide in sales with the launch of the 3DS handheld in March, with internal expectations to sell 4 million units in its first month.

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17 user comments

129.1.2011 01:10

I guess the kids grew up!

229.1.2011 02:19

Quote:

The gaming company attributed the drop to a wildly stronger yen and a lack of compelling software titles for its DS and Wii consoles.

Nah, if that were the case, then the Wii and DS never would have had good sales. I honestly don't know how they were ever able to convince anyone to buy one of these...but they clearly had a system, and whatever it was, they need to go back to it. Maybe it was those commercials with the ugly little box car...next to that car, anything looks good.

329.1.2011 04:25

I guess all the kids haven't grown up...

429.1.2011 12:40

I'm sure the 3ds will make more money since there will be lots of games that never on the ds yet

529.1.2011 15:49

Quote:
I'm sure the 3ds will make more money since there will be lots of games that never on the ds yet
Well, maybe not. If the PSP 2 has strong launch titles Nintendo may have a bit of a battle ahead of them. Especially since the next PSP platform will also come as an Android phone as well.

The 3d gimmick will be hard to push against the functionality of a phone mated with a real gaming system.

629.1.2011 19:03

Then again, it wouldn't be the first time Nintendo's "gimmick" won out over the "functionality" of its (costly) competition. The 3DS is already shaping up to be another cash cow for Nintendo.

729.1.2011 22:16

Originally posted by jookycola:
Quote:
I'm sure the 3ds will make more money since there will be lots of games that never on the ds yet
Well, maybe not. If the PSP 2 has strong launch titles Nintendo may have a bit of a battle ahead of them. Especially since the next PSP platform will also come as an Android phone as well.

The 3d gimmick will be hard to push against the functionality of a phone mated with a real gaming system.
the PS-Phone appears to be substantially weaker Hardware wise than the dedicated PS Portable 2. my guess is the PS-Phone wont get all the bleeding edge titles.

830.1.2011 21:00

Maybe if Nintendo made some "Rated-M" games and invested a bit more in graphics, they would sell better.

Stop aiming at tiny children and the elderly and aim at young folks...they exclude the 16-25 gamer demographic with their children's games...FPS games sell, if the graphics are good.

930.1.2011 22:20

Don't class all of us 16-25-year-olds together. Some of us are not "mature" enough to get giddy over yet another shoot-em-up game. Though, in all fairness, there are a considerable number of FPS titles for the Wii.

1031.1.2011 11:14

When XBOX/PS3 offer motion at the same price as WII, the WII will always lose out. They definitely changed the market with their motion capabilities, but the edge, poor graphics, expensive yet primitive system eventually wore out and without any new innovation they have become irrelevant.

It's too bad, but WII probably won't have another non-hand-held game system. Competition is always good.

1131.1.2011 18:22

Well...who wants to buy a DS when the new 3DS is almost out...and they're having to save their cash to spring $250 for it.

The Wii is a mostly dead platform...they saturated the market...probably everyone who wants a Wii has a Wii. The good games aren't really coming out for the system anymore either...I think most developers have abandoned the system except for Nintendo and maybe a few niche guys.

Nintendo won't be making much money until the 3DS and the Wii2 is out.

123.2.2011 05:43

Surprised it's not the piraters fault

133.2.2011 08:05

they are bound to slow at some point - once people realised the wii is garbage. plus with things like psmove being so much better than a wii.

143.2.2011 08:45

@babelfish: Was your comment meant to be taken seriously? (It's hard to know for sure when someone's being sarcastic in a textual comment.)


153.2.2011 09:51

ps move is loads better. ps3 graphics and the actual move device is much more precise and has depth - so it knows if you move towards/away from the screen. much better for things like the table tennis game.

im looking forward to killzone3 using the sharpshooter rifle i have ordered. looks like great fun :) esp now they are looking at getting the psmove working with pc. imagine pc fps with a rifle :)

163.2.2011 10:08

Originally posted by nonoitall:
Don't class all of us 16-25-year-olds together. Some of us are not "mature" enough to get giddy over yet another shoot-em-up game. Though, in all fairness, there are a considerable number of FPS titles for the Wii.
You are so right about shooters. The power of these machines and the graphical capabilities yet all the developers churn out is darn war shooters. My collection looks quite repetitive! Why not put the same amazing graphical art into other games genres with an added touch of imagination???

173.2.2011 17:32

Originally posted by TrinUK:
Originally posted by nonoitall:
Don't class all of us 16-25-year-olds together. Some of us are not "mature" enough to get giddy over yet another shoot-em-up game. Though, in all fairness, there are a considerable number of FPS titles for the Wii.
You are so right about shooters. The power of these machines and the graphical capabilities yet all the developers churn out is darn war shooters. My collection looks quite repetitive! Why not put the same amazing graphical art into other games genres with an added touch of imagination???
kind of hard to do when wild imagination is considered a mental disorder. for those that imagine too much there is always the ward.

Shooter this Shooter that once you played wolfienstien3D you've played them all.

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