Slumping game sales, strong yen take their toll
July 29, 2010 — It’s been a while since Nintendo was in the red, but that’s the color of the company’s Q1 2010 financial results. Thanks to sluggish game sales and unfavorable exchange rates, Nintendo was hit with a $289 million net loss for the quarter ending June 30.
Nintendo owns the two best-selling video game devices on the market in the Nintendo DS and Wii, but the company has hit a dry spell in terms of software sales for those consoles. The company acknowledged that a lack of new titles has depressed revenue. Though sales in each region dropped compared to Q1 2009, the European region was especially hard hit as sales plunged 39%.
Although game demand is down, the weakness of the euro and dollar versus the yen did a number on Nintendo’s bottom line as the company booked a foreign currency-related one-time loss of more than $811 million (70.5 billion yen).
On the bright side for Nintendo, the company’s cash-cows Mario and Pokémon had a good quarters. Sales of Super Mario Galaxy 2 surpassed 4 million worldwide. The Wii Sports franchise continued to pay dividends with Wii Sports Resort selling 3 million units, and Wii Sports selling 2.7 million. In total, Nintendo has sold more than 66 million copies of Wii Sports and 19 million copies of Wii Sports Resort since their launches.
The only million-selling Nintendo DS title for the quarter was the latest entry into the Pokémon franchise, HeartGold/SoulSilver, which saw 1.69 million in sales.
Read more about Nintendo earnings at Video Games Industry Today:
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