Nintendo have unleashed their end of year figures and with it brings a mixture of both good and bad news.
First things first lets talk cash. Nintendo officially announced they made a net loss of just over 43 billion yen (£328m), which marks the first time the company has posted an annual loss in their history. On the bright side, this is lower than Nintendo initially projected. Sales however fell 36.2 percent year-on-year to 648 billion yen (£4.9b).
As for consoles, 17.13 million 3DS consoles have now been sold worldwide with 13.35 million units sold in the period. The DS sold 5.1 million units, taking lifetime sales to 151 million. The Wii sold 9.84 million hardware units taking lifetime sales up to 95 million. These figure covers all sales up to the end of March 2012.
Nintendo went on to say that they’ll start making money on each 3DS console sold by the end of September 2012.
Nintendo predicts a return to profit for the current financial year to March 31, 2013. The firm forecasts operating profit of 35 billion yen (£267m) and sales of 820 billion yen (£6.2b).
It seems the loss may have been caused by a mixture of reasons. The lackluster 3DS launch, declining Wii sales and problems outside of Nintendo to name a few. Nintendo isn’t completely to blame however as 27 billion yen (£211m) was lost due to the exchange rate alone!
It may have been a bad year for Nintendo, but with sales of the 3DS continuing to thrive and the upcoming release of the Wii U, hopefully Nintendo can turn this misfortune around.
An overall look at hardware sales as of 31st March 2012
