Nintendo Surprisingly Cuts Profit Forecast By 33%

Authored by Jay Baage on January 29, 2009 - 12:42pm.

Tokyo, Japan - Nintendo, the maker of the popular Wii games console, stunned the market on Thursday with a 33% cut of its profit forecasts to 230 billion yen ($2.6 billion) in the year ending March 31. Nintendo cut its Wii sales forecast for this fiscal year by 1 million consoles to 26.5 million. Sales of the DS handheld player are projected at 31.5 million machines, 1 million more than earlier estimated, the company said.

Part of the problem, according to games industry insiders in Japan and the UK, is that the pipeline of "must-have" Nintendo Wii software is less strong now than it was six months ago, according to Times Online. Recessions in Europe, Japan and the U.S. also forced Sony Corp. to announce a record operating loss in Thursday.

In 2008, 10.2 million Wii consoles were sold in the U.S., surpassing the combined 8.2 million for Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3, according to figures from NPD Group Inc, Bloomberg Reports. Games for the Wii, including Mario Kart and Wii Fit, were the top four best-selling titles in the U.S. in 2008, Port Washington, New York-based NPD said.

Related Links:
http://www.nintendo.com
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aTtkM_ybSHJI
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/japan/article5610164.ece