Nintendo Cuts Profit Forecast 70Pct Ahead of Wii U Release

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By Wolfgang Gruener
published

The Wii U cannot arrive too soon. Nintendo has just slashed its profit expectations for the full year by 70 percent, and even this number may be a bit optimistic.

Nintendo said that it now expects a net profit of about $75.2 million for this fiscal year (which ends in march 2013), up from a $350.8 million loss in fiscal 2011. However, the new forecast is down from an original forecast of a profit of $250.5 million for the year.

The reduction is mainly due to a lowered shipment volume for the 3DS from 18.5 to 17.5 million units. Nintendo said it shipped more than 5 million 3DS devices in the second and third calendar quarter of this year. The Wii continues to decline much faster than originally planned as the company sold only 1.3 million consoles in Q2 and Q3, which was blamed on a lack of compelling game releases. For the full year, Nintendo now expects the Wii to sell only 5 million units, down from a forecast of 10.5 million half a year ago.

The savior might be the Wii U, which company believes will sell 5.5 million units until the end of March. The company indicated that the console is aggressively priced and will sell at a loss for Nintendo initially. The profits are therefore mainly in software sales: Nintendo believes it can sell every Wii U customer about four games - or 24 million copies in total. Given its history, this is a rather optimistic goal and will depend on a strong third-party lineup for the Wii U ecosystem. There is not much room for failure.

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Wolfgang Gruener
26 Comments Comment from the forums
  • ikyung
    Well, I'll probably get it just because they have Pikmin 3, Monster Hunter 3 and Bayonetta 2.. but, still on the fence about this console..
    Reply
  • thecolorblue
    Consoles suck...

    just sayin'
    Reply
  • giovanni86
    I have a friend who's a die hard fan of Nintendo, and for the first time he's going to actually wait and see if its worth it. After all the Wii was just a short thrill. For myself i will be letting my PC handle my gaming life after all the Wii U is just a small upgrade in terms of hardware and in all reality i just hate the idea behind the tablet thing becoming a part of the game. Didn't spend 2k on a tv to watch part of the game on a small tablet. But minus my hate towards it, i hope they do well to encourage Xbox and Sony to get off there chairs and pump out a new console so better ports come out for the PC to utilize the hardware we've already had for well over half a decade.
    Reply
  • julianbautista87
    if they make another mario galaxy, or another pikmin, or another DK country returns, I'm in.
    Reply
  • back_by_demand
    julianbautista87if they make another mario galaxy, or another pikmin, or another DK country returns, I'm in.What the world really needs is the 473rd installment of yet another Mario game, because we all hate variety. When exactly did Nintendo come up with a new franchise character, rather than banging out the same tired ones from the 1980's?
    Reply
  • notuptome2004
    giovanni86I have a friend who's a die hard fan of Nintendo, and for the first time he's going to actually wait and see if its worth it. After all the Wii was just a short thrill. For myself i will be letting my PC handle my gaming life after all the Wii U is just a small upgrade in terms of hardware and in all reality i just hate the idea behind the tablet thing becoming a part of the game. Didn't spend 2k on a tv to watch part of the game on a small tablet. But minus my hate towards it, i hope they do well to encourage Xbox and Sony to get off there chairs and pump out a new console so better ports come out for the PC to utilize the hardware we've already had for well over half a decade.


    The Wii U Gamepad Not Tablet does not just show you part of the game but you interact with it like an inventory screen or anything like that like in Zombie U your player on screen crouches down as you would in real life to saearch through the bag to get ammo or other stuff while the Game is still going in real time on the big screen it makes the whole survival horror aspect of the game much scarier


    Also other games the GP is used as a 2nd view in to the world separate from the view on screen Also games like Call of duty black ops 2 uses the screen in Multiplayer with friend as aon screen to play split screen while someone uses the big screen just to game on and you use the Wii U GP of which is all Wireless

    Also the Wii U is not justa small upgrade to the anything it is next generation system far better then anything the PS3 and 360 can handle . Multi-core CPU 2GB of ram in the system 1GB just for games a Radeon 7000 series GPU in the thing wel rumnored now to be a 6790 or somthing i dont know but still and the whole system is smaller then the Orginal Wii


    The GP tho has tones of features on it but in order for it to work the console must be on as well everything is powered and rendered by the Console itself the GP has no internal CPU or GPU


    You also have the Nintendo TVii features built in that works with your home DVR or Cable system

    Reply
  • julianbautista87
    back_by_demandWhat the world really needs is the 473rd installment of yet another Mario game, because we all hate variety. When exactly did Nintendo come up with a new franchise character, rather than banging out the same tired ones from the 1980's?
    The old franchises are very good, you can't deny that... Pikmin is an excellent game, Mario is also very good and addictive...

    But you are right, I remember the Rare times, they usually came out with new ideas and stuff...
    Reply
  • DRosencraft
    What happened to Nintendo? They used to be a company with tons of cash on hand that allowed them to take risks and experiment. It used to pay off. Now they're just trudging along, hemorrhaging money like there's no tomorrow. The Wii U would have to be a true blockbuster for them to hope to make up for the fact they're dropping profit guidance that much. 70%? That's better than the $300 Million loss last year, but still, that's bad. Especially if they're relying on selling over 5 million systems AND averaging 4 games per buyer, considering few people even buy that many games over the course of a year, let alone in the next 5 months.
    Reply
  • back_by_demand
    julianbautista87The old franchises are very good, you can't deny that... Pikmin is an excellent game, Mario is also very good and addictive...But you are right, I remember the Rare times, they usually came out with new ideas and stuff...Yes, the old franchises, it is just embarrassing now though. This cow has been milked so much that the milk has turned to dust. Give us new ideas please.
    Reply
  • dormantreign
    I'm going to be a kid in line launch day of the WiiU. Can't wait.
    Reply