Satoru Iwata comments on dissapointing financial revisions

After Nintendo delivered its full-year financial report this afternoon, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata held a press conference to give expanded explantations to the figures.

Most of what Iwata said could be gleamed from the numbers, however there were some truths and realisations that the numbers don’t reveal. Starting with the 3DS, Iwata told the press that although the system failed to miss targets in Japan it will only be by a small number, internationally the system has missed targets far and wide.

There was one country where the 3DS did positively, though, and that was France. However, it wasn’t enough to make up for the rest of Europe and the UK though, as sales there have been well below expectations.

The Wii U is a whole different story; however Iwata did admit that ‘some progress’ had been made in turning the system around. This progress was only in the US and Europe, though, where the system has received price drops and aggressive bundling. Even with these price drops and bundles the Wii U still ‘fell short of our targeted recovery by a large margin’ says Iwata. The main problem is that Nintendo didn’t expect to have to drop the price of the Wii U in these markets and thus the high expectations of profit.

Iwata also said that the Yen appreciating also continues to help against the Europe and US dollar. However when those profits are converted back to Yen it hits Nintendo hard, which they didn’t anticipate.

You can read Satoru Iwata’s full statement here. Nintendo’s quarterly report and investor meeting at the end of the month should reveal more, and short term and medium term plans will be revealed.

Source: Nintendo IR