The Japanese giant video game Nintendo has reported a fall of more than half its sales in the first quarter over one year to 93.93 billion yen (816 million), due to the absence of featured games for its consoles struggling to find buyers. The sales of Nintendo had already plunged by 25.6% in the first quarter of 2010 to 2011 a year, partly because of currency fluctuations.
The group has also been a victim of rising of the Japanese currency, all resulting in an operating deficit of 37.7 billion yen (328 million), against a gain of 23 billion last year at the same time, and a net loss of 25.15 billion yen (220 million) equivalent to that lamented a year earlier.
DOWN 40% OF THE 3DS
Nintendo has also revised down a massive Thursday its forecast of financial results for the full fiscal year of April 2011 to March 2012, due to a decrease in popularity of its products, the yen and expensive higher spending. It sets out all the stops to promote its handheld consoles Nintendo 3DS, who do not meet the expected success despite an unprecedented three-dimensional rendering visible without glasses. He is also forced to become active in developing its next machine room, which is U Wii successor to the Wii in order to recover as much as possible the bar before the year end in March 2012.
To boost sales of its new phones, a sector of the market where Nintendo has an undivided domination thanks to previous versions of the DS, the manufacturer announced a 40% drop in prices of 3DS, from 25 000 to 15 000 yen (less than 140 euros). The decrease will be effective August 11 in Japan, said President Satoru Iwata. Nintendo did not say when the decline would be effective in the U.S. or Europe, merely say that cuts would take place by September, "a schedule and in different proportions to that provided to Japan" .
Price declines of this type, just months after the release of a new console - the 3DS was on sale in February - are exceptional in the gaming industry. Price reductions are mostly moderate and occur later in the life cycle of consoles, on which manufacturers and distributors carry a small margin, the bulk of their profits being made on the games. In order not to antagonize the first buyers of its latest console, Nintendo announced that players who paid the full price for the console will be offered twenty games playable on NES or GBA 3DS, the first Zelda or Mario kart super circuit.
Nintendo more than ever expected annual net profit of 20 billion yen (175 million), instead of planned 110 billion and 77.6 billion collected last year, and an operating profit of 35 billion yen (175 billion against expected) on a turnover which should not exceed 900 billion yen instead of 1 100 billion, a fall of 11.3% over the year.
