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Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has apologised to investors for the poor financials posted by the company yesterday.
It reported a loss of 578m for the six months ending September 30th.
I feel greatly accountable for missing our financial forecast for the half year ended September and revising downward our forecast for the full year,’ the exec admitted.
As the worldwide number of pre-orders indicated, the Nintendo 3DS had high expectations from consumers as well as market and industry players. However, the actual sales after the launch did not meet the expectations, and based on the judgment that we could not get it back to its originally-anticipated sales pace as a sound successor to the Nintendo DS unless we took action, we made an immediate decision and announced the price markdown around three months ago, at the same time of the announcement of financial results in late July.”
Iwata, nonetheless, is optimistic for the future of the 3D handheld.
The Nintendo 3DS gained momentum when it was released but it didn’t continue to sell as expected after that, which made us decide on the markdown of the hardware,” Iwata continued.
After the markdown, the sales volume of Nintendo 3DS increased smoothly. The sales again went up after the Nintendo 3DS Conference on September 13th, which was held when the effect of the markdown had started to calm down.
The hardware is selling well right now in anticipation of the steady stream of releases of big titles starting from November. Also, because a pink version of the hardware was released in Japan and the first edition of Nintendo Direct was broadcast last week, the hardware sales increased to surpass 70,000 units although it was a week before payday (in Japan), when sales usually decline.”
Furthermore, there have also been some good numbers for the seemingly forgotten Wii – something that could be especially good news considering that The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword will shortly be released for the system.
According to a report from Nintendo of America, the US sales of the Wii for the first three weeks of October exceeded those of the corresponding period a year ago,” he added.
They also reported that consumers are reacting favorably to the value promotions offered by the retailers. I think this is a good sign for sales growth in the year-end.”
