Year-on-year revenues down 36%; 3DS system expected to again sell at profit-per-unit by September
Nintendo has confirmed unprecedented negative results for the financial year, recording a net loss of £329 million ($531m) for twelve months ending March 31st.
The poor figures mark Nintendo’s first annual loss for thirty years and the only time it has accounted a year in the red since it began shipping games consoles.
Despite Nintendo shifting about 13.5 million 3DS units across the period, year-on-year revenues were down 36 per cent.
Nintendo claimed it “continues to pursue its basic strategy of ‘gaming population expansion’ by offering compelling products that anyone can enjoy, regardless of age, gender or gaming experience”.
Last year the company slashed the price of its 3DS systems in a bid to move on from the handheld’s stuttering start on the market.
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That price reduction operation meant each system sold at a loss. Nintendo now predicts that 3DS will again be selling at a profit-per-unit price by September 2012.
When Apple saw that MP3 players were being replaced by phones, they made a phone. When Nintendo saw their gaming machines being replaced by phones, they sat idle and went down with the ship. Nintendo, go make phones!
It's funny you say that Wolfos, because I feel that Apple and Nintendo can be quite similar in some respects.
They love being proprietary, doing their own thing and give their own systems enough of their own developer support to make the system worth buying for their software alone.
But the problem with Nintendo is that they really are disconnected from the concept of the Phone (I think), or at least the consumer as it is today.
They seem to have grown limited in their ability to connect and relate to anything that does not look like a 1980's gamer.
At the same time that might be their strength. They are Japanese, prudent like eagles that lock their wings in turbulent air. And also like Apple they have a cult following and some immaterial connection with younger generations.
I think it is their link with the young that allows them to always be new in the eyes of their consumers.
This might sound crazy, but Nintendo's might want to consider going the SEGA route and abandon hardware altogether. The 3Ds is a wonderful device as is the PS VITA, but the iOS devices introduced a brand new paradigm and these "old schoolers" are having a really hard time adjusting to this new reality.
Nintendo's vast catalog of games would do amazingly well on other manufacturer's hardware. They have a much better chance of surviving than Sony's game division.
