Lean economic times have resulted in video game giant Nintendo reporting its first ever annual loss for the current fiscal year.
The video game company slashed its full fiscal year earnings forecast for the second time citing a rise in the yen that was “beyond expectation level,” as well as weaker-than-expected sales of Nintendo DS hardware and Nintendo 3DS gaming software.
Nintendo’s 3DS handheld games device, launched this year, wasn’t the hoped-for hit, leading to price cuts and lower earnings expectations.
Nintendo now projects an annual loss of 20 billion yen and a full-year profit from operations of 1 billion yen, down 99.4 percent from the year-ago period. The company also sees full fiscal year revenue of 790 billion yen, down 22 percent.
The firm’s previous forecast from late July had called for a fiscal year profit of 20 billion yen, 35 billion in operating profit and 900 billion yen in revenue.
Duh! They are getting their ass kicked by smart phones, iPod Touches/iPhones and tables like the iPad and soon to be Kindle Fire.
They should get started making Android and iOS versions of their games as soon as possible.
They made a big mistake in their handhled units. They released the DS lite and and then started talking about the 3DS. So of course the DS lite didn’t sell all that well cause people decided to hold out for the 3DS. Now their talking about releasing a 3DS lite as well as the WiiU I think its called. Fans don’t know what to buy. But they also lost a large gamer base with the Wii. Their decision to not stay in the Next Gen race and go after the family and casual gamer market is starting to catch up with them. Why do you think they finally gave in and started releasing the more mature content games that they said they didn’t want to be part of. I think we’re gonna see a big leap forward by Nintendo in their next system. They realize they need to step up.