Nintendo’s Financial Report

Nintendo Co. reported today that it more than doubled net profits for the fiscal year, which closed March 31, 2005. The surge in profits comes after the launch of Nintendo’s latest handheld, the Nintendo DS, which has sold 5.2 million units worldwide. Adding to the success of the DS system are foreign exchange fluctuations and the success of DS software in Japan. Nintendo reports that its net profit climbed to 87.42 billion yen (US 809.44 million) from 33.19 billion yen for the previous fiscal year.

Read More by Reading the Full Article.
The success of the DS system has helped Nintendo balance poor sales for its current console, the Nintendo GameCube, which has faced steady decline due to the PS2 and Xbox. Exchange rates also helped Nintendo’s sudden climb in profits. In fact, the company was able to reverse 67.88 billion yen in losses it reported in the last fiscal term and report 21.85 billion yen in foreign exchange gains.

In terms of software, the latest titles in the Pokemon series for the Game Boy Advance, Pokemon Fire Red and Pokemon Leaf Green sold well, accounting for 6 million units worldwide. Also, the NES classics sold very well in Japan, where they’re known as Famicom Mini. On the GameCube front, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and Mario Party 6 sold more than a million units a piece. On the DS, Super Mario 64 sold more than a million units worldwide.

As good as things look now, Nintendo is also reporting a decline in profits for the upcoming fiscal year due to expected lackluster sales for the GameCube, which should drop by almost 30 percent. Not to mention the fact that its big gamble, the Nintendo Revolution, won’t ship until sometime in 2006. What’s more, the company is expecting a decline in the sale of the Game Boy Advance system by 33.8 percent, and a drop in GBA software sales by 40 percent.