Nintendo slashes income, hardware and software sales forecasts

A slump in demand for the 3DS is among the reasons for the downgrade

Nintendo has lowered its profit forecast for the financial year ending March 2012 by a whopping 82%. The companys original estimate was 110 billion yen, but has now revised the figure to 20 billion yen (about AU$230 million). Also, for the 6-month period ending this September, Nintendo expects to record a loss of 35 billion yen, originally forecasting a profit of 18 billion yen.

Nintendos reasons for the revisions are a stronger-than-expected appreciation of the yen, and with 80% of its sales coming from outside of Japan, the company has been severely affected. a downturn in sales performance, and the recent price drop of the 3DS worldwide, which is as much as 40% in Japan after only 5 months since release.

Read the title of this article and this picture makes sense

Looking at hardware, Nintendo now expects to sell 12 million more Wii consoles (previously 13 million) and 9 million DS consoles (previously 11 million) by March next year. The forecasted figure for 3DS consoles remains unchanged at 16 million. Wed like to point out that in the first three months of the financial year (April to June), 700,000 3DS consoles were sold…and Nintendos expecting 15.3 million more sales in the next nine months. Make of that what you will.

The software sales forecasts for the Wii and DS have lowered but not by too much so I wont go into detail. However, along with the crazy hardware sales forecast for the 3DS, there is also an increased software sales forecast for the system, up to 70 million from 62 million. Nintendo also suffered operating losses in the last three months compared to gains last year. It has attributed this to the exchange rate, costs associated with advertising the 3DS, and costs related to research and development for the upcoming Wii U console.

Source: Andrisang