1UP is reporting that Nintendo has announced its profits were down 52 percent from the previous year, for the period of April to September.
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Nintendo has announced they've posted 69.49 billion yen ($772 million) in profits during the first half of the fiscal year spanning April to September, a whopping 52 percent drop from the 144.83 billion yen ($1.59 billion) profit they posted during the same period last year (via AP).
The earnings trail the 100 billion yen ($1.1 billion) Nintendo forecasted for the period back in May. This is forcing Nintendo to lower their full-year forecast of 300 billion yen profit to 230 billion yen, which would be down from the record 279.1 billion yen profit they raked in last year -- and would make this the first time in six years that Nintendo is predicting its profits to fall.
No, no, don't make any amateur assessments of Wii's popularity, etc., on the basis of this. It's not just declining sales, much of this loss reflects the declining value of the dollar as compared to the yen.
True this was a fairly weak year for releases on Wii, but next year looks to be its strongest year yet; there's a few titles that even I want to buy. Meanwhile the DS is doing fine. This may also hasten the release of Wii-2--which could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on a lot of factors. It's not too soon, but Nintendo always has an interest in keeping the cash cow going until it's slaughtered (by competitor releases). Meaning that Wii-2 probably won't release until around the time of the others.
Perhaps the biggest reason for the decline in sales is that the Wiimote is inadequate, this is indisputable now. It's a shame Nintendo couldn't put the Wiimote+ abilities in the stock controller, would've been a much more interesting console generation. That and HD would've made the console an enduring success. As things stand, the winner of the next console race will turn out to be the true long-standing, long-remembered successor, with the Wii as a bridge to the eventual dominance of motion-controls within the industry. The Wii has proven the marketplace's demand for motion control, now the concept must mature. It's hard to imagine, but the Wiimote is akin to the Atari 2600 controller in its simplicity and unsophistication compared with what's to come. It's the motion-control equivalent of one button and a joystick, or the NES's cross+two buttons (a revolution for its time in its own right).
We will see many motion-control classics in the next gen, things that aren't possible with the current Wii, and that couldn't look as good as they should if the Wii were HD.
Next gen can't come fast enough. Give me a sword fighting game ala Bushido Blade mixed with Tenchu with 1:1 motion control and I'll buy day-1, it's a game I've been dreaming about playing since I first began playing games, and I know I'm not alone.
I remember a friend and I ended up spending many hours trying to flesh out the controls for such a game, back in the N64 generation. We were trying to map 1:1 sword controls to the N64 controller but with only limited success. It was then that I conceived the kind of rotary-style menus that I later saw cropping up in games--at the time I called them 'octogon menus,' menus that were easy to use with an analog controller, where a range of 64 options were available with just two motions.
The mapping did not go well. I'd had some training in real-world blade techniques in my martial arts style and knew what motions were realistic and how they would have to appear. You have three controls points for a sword: the tip, the wrists/handle, the body itself. Mapping this to a controller that's not 1:1 is nearly impossible and can only result in hideous complexity--such as the system we came up with which could only control two points at once and so used a context button to change between sword movement and body position control. Even then it would've been fairly clumsy. But motion controls make the previously impossible possible.
It's fun to think of such things, but I'm not a game designer by profession. The game we came up with is only now becoming practical, some 14 years later, and in ways we never imagined.
The game was ninja vs samurai, that eternal struggle, and was somewhat truer to the source material than most games. It would be a bit like Tenchu, but with motion control.
Body movement even with motion control is still a big problem, how do you indicate which way your body is moving even if you have 1:1 sword control? There's only two solutions, track relative distance of the 1:1 controller, ala Sony's motion-system--or head tracking, the route MS will likely choose, ala Natal. Nintendo's solution is still up in the air. If Nintendo launches with a plain Wiimote+ for their next console, they'll get slaughtered. And both Sony and MS will bring the price of the console down to earth, realizing that the Wii beat both of them primarily on price.
Either way, that game that I envision will eventually be made in some form and will become a classic. Maybe it will be called Demon Souls 2, who knows, lol
Also..not sure why people bother arguing with teecakes... I sincerely believe now that he is a bot built by Sony and unleashed on small community sites.
Considering Wii has been so on fire as to sell as much as Xbox 360 and PS3 combined how is an eventual drop in revenue not expected, esp. with the recession?
I think, and this is just a guess, that declining Wii sales has something to do with recent price drops for the PS3. PS3 sales are taking away from Wii sales. Folks who were scared off by the 360 red ring o' death bought a Wii because the PS3 was seen as a poor value. Now those same folks are buying PS3s.
That's just off the top of my head, but I can't help but feel that shifts in Wii numbers are mostly due to the PS3.
Hey, when the President of the manufacturer says it there's something to it. Regardless of your amateur assessment of the consoles future.
Well, they saw well over 100% increase last year, that's the bad thing about having a stellar year I guess (sucks to be them). They've still got a ways to fall before they're not kicking the crap out of every other system in history, so I don't care if the president is running through the street with a sandwich board with 'The end is Nigh' painted on it, I'm just not seeing the evidence yet. And I really wouldn't be surprised by the PS3 outpacing the Wii, but again, not seeing it.
I agreed with you and with Iwata, I just wanted to add that it's not just Wii popularity and sales. That's all Iwata can control so that's all he's talking about. It's also the global economic recession, obviously, and the resulting increase of the yen over the dollar which leads to poorer profits when US currency is translated back into yen. We often see the exact opposite occur with Japanese companies making record profits when the yen falls in relation to the dollar and good profits turn into great! profits.
Also..not sure why people bother arguing with teecakes... I sincerely believe now that he is a bot built by Sony and unleashed on small community sites.
Serves Nintendo right for being greedy and lazy. Looks like their money printers are starting to run out of toner. (Not that they're going to be hurting any time soon.)
__________________ There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and "to spec" gameplay footage.
- Benjamin Disraeli (paraphrased)
"This is forcing Nintendo to lower their full-year forecast of 300 billion yen profit to 230 billion yen"
Quick call the WAMMMMBULANCE.
__________________
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Anime men who look like women who look like men. Eventually people will end up forgeting which hole to stick it in or which hole they want it in. Lets all look alike and let test tubes make the babies
I could go with your opinion, or with Iwata's...rank "amateur" that he is.
I'd be curious to know what you guys think Iwata's opinion is, I'm clueless as to what 'problem' you think he was expressing to investors. Unless the problem is 'we can't sustain over 100% increases per year in any climate', cause that's a little bit demanding for any investor, I'd think . Seems what he said was pretty mild and even-handed, perhaps compared to market-speak of others this lack of hubris is seen as an indication of a problem, but I think not.
Seems a mountain of molehills thing, for sure. Clearly this is the worst period the Wii has seen since it's launch, relatively weak software, and doesn't reflect results of a long time coming price cut. The numbers and comments from Nintendo seem expected to me, but with any sufficient long view, and compared to their competition, Nintendo seems to be doing just fine. At this point I kinda wish they weren't, curious to see what they'd do if they got in trouble again .
I'd be curious to know what you guys think Iwata's opinion is, I'm clueless as to what 'problem' you think he was expressing to investors.
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Clearly this is the worst period the Wii has seen since it's launch, relatively weak software, and doesn't reflect results of a long time coming price cut.
How interesting! You answered your own question.
Also, as disgusting as it is to my own sensibilities, when a company's profits drop to the level of "merely somewhat disgustingly high profits" from "extraordinarily disgustingly high profits" then shareholders get nervous and stock prices can drop.
Is it rational? Don't ask me. I buy and hold.
Additionally, don't discount the potential fear within Nintendo over the iPhone. Nintendo craves the casual hand-held market, but their DSiWare is a joke compared to Apple's tens of thousands of software apps/games.
A company only has to explain things when their performance doesn't meet expectations. As Iwata said, the consumer climate turned chillier than they expected, even factoring in the global recession. Arguably last year was the peak Wii years, we're on the path to a new console generation now. So they expected a decrease, along with the recession, just not that much of a decrease.
Can you imagine if government officials were held to this level of minute accountability? And could be fired for f***cking it up badly? I would love that.
Also..not sure why people bother arguing with teecakes... I sincerely believe now that he is a bot built by Sony and unleashed on small community sites.
Actually, no, that's a reason, not a problem. A problem is something that needs solving, generally through changing something. All he was doing, it seems to me, was explaining why this snapshot in time is weaker than last year's snapshot of time.
You can call "weak software" and lower sales whatever you want. When the president of the company sees fit to address it publicly, I'm comfortable in stating it's a problem.
Of course, I've already pointed out that their problem is in earning a lesser level of disgustingly high profits. When you miss your targets, however, shareholders get spooked.
At first I was amazed, I mean, that's a lot of money. But then I considered that a 772 million dollar profit in six months is fucking awesome.
I wouldn't consider this a problem at all, but declining sales. I know investors would see this as a problem but if all of the sudden sales stopped to dead zero and Nintendo had to pay a dollar to everyone in China, twice, they'd still be ahead.
I can only imagine the laughter in the Nintendo board room....
Despite the availability of the new DSi, Nintendo's handheld sales dropped nearly 20% in 2009. This, paired with unfavorable exchange rates, brought Nintendo's profits down 61% in mid-summer.
Also..not sure why people bother arguing with teecakes... I sincerely believe now that he is a bot built by Sony and unleashed on small community sites.
Meaning:
THEY'RE STILL MAKING A GIGANTIC FUCKING PROFIT.
Even right now, with a 52% loss in sales, they're still making more profit than both microsoft's game division OR sony's game division.
So yeah, they're not making making as much money as they were last year, but they're still making more money than just about any other company in all of japan.
I agreed with you and with Iwata, I just wanted to add that it's not just Wii popularity and sales. That's all Iwata can control so that's all he's talking about. It's also the global economic recession, obviously, and the resulting increase of the yen over the dollar which leads to poorer profits when US currency is translated back into yen. We often see the exact opposite occur with Japanese companies making record profits when the yen falls in relation to the dollar and good profits turn into great! profits.
Apparently the all-knowing Iwata should have also predicted a 350% increase in fanboy denial of the poor performance of Nintendo in the marketplace.
. Seems what he said was pretty mild and even-handed, perhaps compared to market-speak of others this lack of hubris is seen as an indication of a problem, but I think not.
