Nintendo stock plummets 12 per cent

UPDATE: Nintendo's stock rose during the afternoon session on the Osaka Securities Exchange. It finished down 12 per cent to 12,290 yen.

ORIGINAL STORY: Nintendo stock plummeted 21 per cent yesterday following the Japanese company's shock quarterly loss – the first in its history.

Former president Hiroshi Yamauchi, Nintendo's largest single shareholder, was reported to have lost a whopping half a billion dollars as a result.

Bloomberg said Yamauchi owned 14.17 million shares, or 10 per cent of Nintendo.

But don't feel too sorry for Yamauchi. He is Japan's sixth-richest man with an estimate fortune of $4.6 billion.

Nintendo, though, seems to be in a spot of bother. Yesterday it announced a 3DS price cut that will amount to about a third off the glasses-free 3D handheld in the UK.

Nintendo said it took the decision so it "will be able to create momentum for Nintendo 3DS and accelerate its market penetration toward the year-end sales season, when the line-up for the applicable software shall be enriched".

Nintendo sold fewer than one million 3DS units across the world between April and June this year.

Worldwide sales of the Nintendo 3DS were 0.71 million for the quarter. Nintendo shifted 4.53 million 3DS games.

For the first quarter of the 2012 financial year, Nintendo made a loss of 25.5 billion yen (£200m). The company blamed this on advertising the 3DS and research and development costs associated with the Wii U, due out next year.