Nintendo loss big but not gargantuan

OUCH! A yearly loss predicted.

N has made quarter losses before, but they turn it around to never making an annual loss!!

It may be higher than the DS after 6 months, but the DS wasnt named after a hugely successful predecessor

"Nintendo forecast a lost"

sp

I chose SD video, but the ingame footage is clearly in much smaller res - why is that? Anyway, nice that they have on new innovation in this next iteration of Super Mario - boomerang mario. Though Shigge has had boomerangs in his games since the first Zelda - what took so long?

I wouldnt call it a gloomy "outlook", Nintendo has made so much profits over the last years it can easily put away with this loss.

It is a transitional year for the company. Wii is on decline with Wii U not out yet. DS is being replaced, 3DS had a less than expected start but is now catching on with the price drop and big titles coming out.

Anyone else think it's crazy how much the strong value of the yen compared to the dollar can down the profits of a Japanese company like that?

Dear Nintendo,

I grew up on NES, SNES, and N64. You lost me at Gamecube, it was good but not great, and the Wii completely alienated me. I had a Gameboy, Gameboy colour, and a DS, but I sold my DS several years ago and never really looked back.

I want to play Nintendo games again, but the quality releases are too few and far between to really make buying a Nintendo console viable for me, especially as 3DS appears to add nothing new except gimmicky 3D and Wii U will be last gen by the time it hits.

Please sell Nintendo games for iOS, I want Pokemon on my iPhone.

Thanks.

@captainCandy funnily enough they took it out of sjyward sword and replaced it with the beetle

Nintendo blamed "a smaller number of hit titles"; decreased hardware and software sales when compared to April-September 2010

Y'know, I'm thinking maybe they should release some games or something. More than 87 million Wii consoles out there and they're treating it like it's the Saturn or Dreamcast in its last month (both of which were fully supported until the end despite having a tiny fraction of the Wii's hardware sales).

Since they announced the Wii U they seem to have dropped all support for the Wii leaving only really Zelda left. It's madness that they're putting all their effort into a machine with a current installed user base of zero instead of the one with 87 million.

there was an amazing stat on neoGAF regarding this. In 2009 alone, Nintendo made more profit than Sony did with the PS1, PS2 and PSP between the years 1996 - 2006 combined. They must have some serious cash and this lose must be a drop in the ocean

Given cash reserves of around $15billion, in the long-term, Nintendo should recover from this. More than anything they're at the mercy of the strong yen, and have been for sometime--it hasn't just increased their losses, but at one point even cancelled out any profit they would have made.

Until the currency situation changes Nintendo aren't likely to post massive profits any time soon. However, the increasing adoption rates of the 3DS will give them reason to be happy. People forget that no console except the Wii exploded out of the blocks, and Wii's momentum began to fade as early as 2009. The 3DS was priced far too high at launch, had a confused advertising campaign, and a sparse and poorly thought-out software line up. 3DS has recovered from its poor start very quickly, with Mario on the way worldwide and Monster Hunter coinciding nicely with Vita's launch in Japan, it's set for a big Christmas season. Nintendo's actions to make the system a long-term success must include lowering the price of retail and digital software, and doing everything they can to stop the perception that 3DS has no software: there is plenty of software coming, and it's Nintendo's job to make sure of that.

Given the new price point, the up-coming Mario titles, and the new hardware bundles--Nintendogs + Cats bundle in time for Christmas is an excellent idea--3DS will gain more momentum over the next couple of months. With Resident Evil in January and a fairly full list of first party titles to come in 2012, Nintendo should be able to keep up that momentum until the inevitable redesign boosts sales.

It's true Nintendo have to compete with smartphones and tablet gaming, but quite why this boom spells the end of traditional handhelds I don't know. More people than ever--potentially 200 million plus thanks to DS/PSP, a massive leap from the GBA's 80 million--have been exposed to traditional handhelds in the last few years, and I don't think they will all disappear en masse. It's also possible in 2 or 3 years, people that just started with smartphone gaming will move onto 3DS and Vita as they become cheaper, keeping the traditional handheld trundling along. There's no doubt 3DS had a tough few months, but to write it off completely is utter stupidity. There simply isn't enough data to call the shots yet, and writing off Nintendo, richer than ever with bigger selling brands than ever, is also very dumb. They've got the guts, brains and money to make a success of the machine. Even if it doesn't increase the numbers over DS, that won't stop it from becoming a successful machine in its own right.

EDIT: From Gamesindustry.biz: "In fact, the impact of those uneven currency markets was even greater than expected, accounting for ¥52.4 billion of the company's losses." (Total loss was ¥70 billion)

Yet Eurogamer can't include that, and throws around words such as "Nintendo blamed" and "Apparently" when discussing the reasons for the losses. Nintendo aren't exactly going to lie when reporting their financial results, it'd be illegal. That exchange loss (not sure on how it transfers into dollars, though someone on Gamesindustry.biz is suggesting that Nintendo would have profited without the exchange loss) has done the real damage to Nintendo's financial results. Not the slow 3DS software sales or declining DS/Wii sales, which are causes for concern, but factors outside of Nintendo's control are really hampering their financial results. Are we not allowed that perspective from Eurogamer?

Keep the faith Nintendo. I'm sure you'll overcome this. I really enjoy my 3DS and have not one single regret. In fact I've had more fun on that than any other system this year.

It may not be gargantuan but its still pretty humongous

Nearly a 1 billion US Dollar loss for a 6 month period is not gargantuan! Uh ok

@itsfuzzy It's not that big if compared to what Nintendo have made over the last 5 years and to large losses made by X-box and Playstation in other periods.

Perhaps if they hadn't decided that their home console was a lost cause 2 years before the release of the next one then they'd be faring a touch better.

On the 26th:
Nintendo expected to report gargantuan loss

On the 27th:
Nintendo loss big but not gargantuan

If you didn't chase sensationalist headlines all the time you wouldn't have to correct yourselves like that and look like morons.

IF NINTENDO make their first yearly lost of 20 billion yen loss ($263.5 million); its strong balance sheet can easily take that; no problem, but what about the future?

It is still their first lost after 31 long, hard years!! Very alarming considering Nintendo's conservative and shrewd business practices.
Yes, the Yen strength has hurt it; but they also missed their net sales target with weaker software revenue.

CEO Iwata-san has said many time that he would not create a constant monthly additional online digital revenue stream. " a no monthly fee" approach. I think this is a big mistake. And surely he must go back on that?

Take Sony's PSN's PS+ for instance. Not only does it provide Sony with a variable constant additional online revenue stream, the membership covers content for all Playstation platforms and may actually tempt current users to keep buying additional Playstation consoles!

Overall, Nintendo is a well-managed but conservative company that doesn't like to change old business models. I think we put up with this as long as they are innovative on the actual gaming design. But I think this loss can only be good for the company and consumers in the long-run.

>Y'know, I'm thinking maybe they should release some games or something.

1. They're probably putting all their development time into making launch titles for the wii-u.

2. Even with that, nintendo DO still develop publish a lot of games in a year. How many first party microsoft games has their been this year? Think about it.

Does the ignore button exist anymore?

What's a loss of 1 billion dollars these days?

Soon enough Big N will blame cancer, starvation and of course Greece.

always to be expected with the introduction of a new console, parts are initially expensive and r&d will be able to produce 3ds at a much cheaper cost price in future. no surprises here.

@ruddigger7 I don't mean to burst your bubble, but unlike Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo is leaning on existing and proven hardware which has had it's bulk price reduced for years now. There may be further decreases in the cost, but not significant in the face of the early cut they made to their price already.