Nintendo shares slump after loss

29 July 2011 Last updated at 07:17 GMT Nintendo's latest gadget the 3DS has not made a big impact on the market Shares in Nintendo have tumbled on the Tokyo stock exchange a day after the company announced a loss in the first quarter.

The shares closed down 13%, having fallen as much as 20%, on news of the worse-than-expected profits figures.

On Thursday, Nintendo reported a net loss of 25.5bn yen ($324m, £201m) for the April-to-June quarter, its first-ever quarterly loss.

The company also cut its full-year profit forecast.

Nintendo said it now expects a net profit of 20bn yen for the year to March 2012, down 82% from its previous projection.

'Underweight' Nintendo earnings were hit by weak sales of its new gadget, the handlheld 3DS console.

In an attempt to boost sales the company has announced huge price cuts.

The price in Japan will be about 40% less - retailing at 15,000 yen. In the US, the price will drop next month to $169.99 from $249.99.

However, analysts said the price cut may hurt the company's earnings even further.

"The timing of the 3DS hardware price cut is surprising, given the major in-house software releases," said Hiroshi Kamide of JP Morgan.

"We believe the 3DS will be a heavy weight on earnings over the medium term," he added.

JP Morgan also cut its rating on Nintendo from "overweight" to "underweight," saying the current situation was worse than feared and the outlook uncertain.

Tired customers?

To make matters worse for the gaming giant, industry watchers say sales of the 3DS are unlikely to turn around anytime soon.

"Software is a big problem. Right now there are not many games available for the 3DS," said David Abrams, of CAGCast Video Game.

Mr Abrams added that while the 3DS has had a lukewarm response, smartphones continue to capture an increasing share of the gaming market.

He said easy availability of games and their low cost meant more and more people were preferring smartphones over specialised gadgets.

"The question is, are people willing to spend a premium to play the next Mario game or would they spend that amount to buy close to 40 games on their smartphones," he said

Mr Abrams added that despite the launch of its latest version, the DS gadget has been losing its charm.

"The reality is that people may be tired of the whole DS concept. It has been around for almost seven years," he said.

"May be its not that exciting to people anymore," he added.

View the original article here

Read More

Nintendo hurt by weak 3DS sales

28 July 2011 Last updated at 09:20 GMT The 3DS, a cross between a handheld and a tablet device, has not been a smash hit Japanese gaming giant Nintendo has reported a surprise loss, hit by weak sales of its new 3DS handheld game player.

The company reported a net loss of 25.5bn yen ($324m, £201m) for the April-to-June quarter, compared with a loss of 25.2bn yen last year.

For the year to March 2012, Nintendo now expects a net profit of 20bn yen, down 82% from its previous forecast.

It has cut the price of the 3DS console sharply in Japan and the US.

The price in Japan will be about 40% less - retailing at 15,000 yen. In the US, the price will drop next month to $169.99 from $249.99.

"For anyone who was on the fence about buying a Nintendo 3DS, this is a huge motivation to buy now," Nintendo's US president Reggie Fils-Aime said.

Analysts said Nintendo lacked hit games titles to fuel sales of its consoles.

Nintendo's total sales during the quarter fell by more than 50% to 93.93bn yen.

About 80% of Nintendo's sales are from outside of Japan, meaning it has been hit severely by a strong yen.

The company's shares in Tokyo have fallen by more than 40% this year.

View the original article here

Read More

Nintendo shares dive on crumbling profit outlook

TOKYO | Fri Jul 29, 2011 12:15am EDT

TOKYO (Reuters) - Nintendo Co Ltd's shares plunged on Friday, wiping off as much as $5 billion of the videogame maker's market value, after it slashed its full-year profit forecast to the lowest level in 27 years.

Profits are set to shrivel after Nintendo was forced to cut the price of its 3DS handheld games device to try to jumpstart weak sales, just six months after launching the gadget that it hoped would replicate the success of the previous generation DS.

Shares of the Kyoto-based firm hit 11,100 yen, its lowest intraday level since May 2004 before recovering to trade down about 15 percent in early afternoon.

Nintendo slashed its annual operating profit forecast in after-market hours on Thursday to 35 billion yen from an initial forecast of 175 billion yen. The new estimate is far short of the previous consensus of 154.9 billion yen based on 24 analysts' forecasts ahead of the results.

"They are standing on the edge," said Yuuki Sakurai, CEO and president of Fukoku Capital Management in Tokyo. "When I ride on the trains I see people using their smartphones to play games and people don't want to overlap their spending on other devices," he said.

Nintendo must consider providing games to these new platforms rather than focusing on new hardware, Sakurai added.

Nintendo also cut sales forecasts for its Wii home games console and the previous generation DS handheld device.

The Wii is facing harsh competition from rival Microsoft's Xbox, while many casual gamers are turning to devices like Apple's iPhone and iPad, rather than dedicated games gadgets.

JP Morgan cut its rating on the firm behind the Super Mario franchise to "underweight" from "overweight," saying the current situation was worse than feared and the outlook uncertain.

"The timing of the 3DS hardware price cut is surprising, given the major in-house software releases... We believe the 3DS will be a heavy weight on earnings over the medium term. The lack of a share buyback announcement is also disappointing," analyst Hiroshi Kamide said in a report.

STIFF COMPETITION

Shares of Sony Corp also fell on Friday, a day after the Japanese consumer electronics firm slashed its outlook for TV sales and cut its full-year net profit forecast to 60 billion yen from 80 billion yen.

Brokerage CLSA cut its rating of Sony to "underperform" from "outperform" and lowered its target share price to 2,150 yen from 2,430 yen, saying the downgrade reflected "the stronger headwinds from LCD panel and TV overcapacity as well as the strengthening yen."

Sony, the maker of Bravia TVs, slashed its annual forecast for LCD TVs to 22 million from 27 million and warned that annual losses in the division might widen from the previous year.

By midmorning Sony shares were down 2 percent at 1,973 yen, while the benchmark Nikkei was down 0.1 percent ($1 = 77.800 Japanese Yen)

(Reporting by Isabel Reynolds, James Topham, Ayai Tomisawa, Mariko Katsumura and Tim Kelly; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Anshuman Daga)

View the original article here

Read More

Miis save the day in stolen Nintendo Wii caper

Nintendo

The thieves would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling kids ... I mean Miis.

Well here's a good reason to make a Mii avatar of yourself and everyone else living in your household if you happen to own a Nintendo Wii.

Police in Florida say it was a family of virtual Miis who helped them return a stolen Wii to its rightful owner after a burglary, according to Fox 30 News.

Meg Witherspoon of Jacksonville, Fla., recently reported to police that her house had been burglarized. Among the items taken were a flatscreen television and a Wii game system.

Over the course of the next couple of days after the burglary, one Latrina Shepard pawned a 19-inch TV and a Wii at two different pawn shops telling the proprietors that she owned the electronics. Police were finally able to confirm that the TV actually belonged to Witherspoon by matching the serial number to the one she had given them.

But Witherspoon didn't have the serial number for her Wii. Instead, when police found the Wii at the second pawn shop they were able to confirm that it was hers based on the Mii avatars she her daughter and two sons created and stored on the device.

As anyone who has created a Mii avatar of themselves knows, they may be cartoony little figures, but you sure can do up a pretty good likeness of yourself.

Though Shepard has insisted she got the Wii and TV from a friend and didn't know they were stolen, she's been charged with illegal pawning, a third-degree felony. 

(Thanks to Kotaku for the heads up.)

For more gaming news, check out:

Winda Benedetti writes about games for msnbc.com. You can follow her tweets about games and other things right here on Twitter or join her in the stream right here on Google+.  You can check out the In-Game Facebook page right here.

View the original article here

Read More

Amazon suspends Nintendo 3DS sales

UPDATED: See below

If you were planning to finally pick up one of Nintendo's new 3DS gaming gadgets, you're going to have to pick it up somewhere other than Amazon.com. The online retail giant appears to have suspended sales of the gadget that lets you see video games in 3-D without wearing special glasses.

A visit to this Nintendo 3DS product page at Amazon.com reveals this message from the retailer:

While this item is available from other marketplace sellers on this page, it is not currently offered by Amazon.com because customers have told us there may be something wrong with our inventory of the item, the way we are shipping it, or the way it's described here. (Thanks for the tip!) We're working to fix the problem as quickly as possible.

Though oddly enough, if you visit this page at Amazon.com right now, you can still purchase the device. It's not clear what the difference between the two pages is. Both indicate that Amazon and Target will be fulfilling the order. And a visit to Target.com directly shows that it is still selling the device.

Perhaps there's just a rare bad batch of 3DS devices floating around at Amazon? There's also speculation sales were suspended because consumers found that the 3DS' top screen rubs against the bottom screen, over time leaving the top screen scratched up (as one customer posted here).

But for the most part, the device has been receiving positive reviews from customers at Amazon.com. Out of 359 customer reviews, 210 gave it five stars and 84 gave it four stars.

Still, this is just the latest difficulty Nintendo's new portable gaming gadget has faced since launching back in March. Initial reports suggested some 3DS owners were encountering a "black screen of death," though that did not turn out to be a far reaching problem. And some customers have reported feeling dizzy and nauseated when using the device's 3-D display.

But the biggest problem has been the sales — which have been significantly lower than Nintendo initially expected — due at least in part to a less-than-exciting line-up of games at launch.

I've reached out to both Nintendo and Amazon to find out why the 3DS sales have been suspended. Amazon has not yet responded, but a Nintendo representative told me they are checking into it and will get back to me. So check back here for an update.

UPDATE #1: An Amazon spokesperson has responded with this explanation:

We received customer feedback that there may be an inventory issue with the Cosmo Black Nintendo 3DS. The integrity of the product is not under review. Customers are still able to purchase the Amazon.com offer of the Aqua Blue Nintendo 3DS, however the Amazon.com offer of black Nintendo 3DS has been removed until the inventory issue is resolved. 

When I asked them to clarify what kind of "inventory issue" this was, the spokesperson replied:

Although I am not able to provide more detail on the inventory issue itself, I can confirm that there is no problem with the Cosmo Black Nintendo 3DS units themselves. This is an inventory problem that was brought to our attention from customer feedback and we are looking into it and will resolve as soon as possible. 

UPDATE #2: The Amazon spokesperson now says: "Happy to report that the Amazon offer of the Cosmo Black Nintendo 3DS has been reinstated."

So there you have it. Whatever the issue was, it doesn't appear to be a problem with Nintendo 3DS devices themselves and it appears Amazon has sorted it out.

(Thanks to Consumer Reports for the heads up.)

For more game news, check out:

Winda Benedetti writes about games for msnbc.com. You can follow her tweets about games and other things right here on Twitter or join her in the stream right here on Google+. You can check out the In-Game Facebook page right here.

View the original article here

Read More

Miis save the day in stolen Nintendo Wii caper

 Nintendo

The thieves would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling kids ... I mean Miis.

Well here's a good reason to make a Mii avatar of yourself and everyone else living in your household if you happen to own a Nintendo Wii.

Police in Florida say it was a family of virtual Miis who helped them return a stolen Wii to its rightful owner after a burglary, according to Fox 30 News.

Meg Witherspoon of Jacksonville, Fla., recently reported to police that her house had been burglarized. Among the items taken were a flatscreen television and a Wii game system.

Over the course of the next couple of days after the burglary, one Latrina Shepard pawned a 19-inch TV and a Wii at two different pawn shops telling the proprietors that she owned the electronics. Police were finally able to confirm that the TV actually belonged to Witherspoon by matching the serial number to the one she had given them.

But Witherspoon didn't have the serial number for her Wii. Instead, when police found the Wii at the second pawn shop they were able to confirm that it was hers based on the Mii avatars she her daughter and two sons created and stored on the device.

As anyone who has created a Mii avatar of themselves knows, they may be cartoony little figures, but you sure can do up a pretty good likeness of yourself.

Though Shepard has insisted she got the Wii and TV from a friend and didn't know they were stolen, she's been charged with illegal pawning, a third-degree felony. 

(Thanks to Kotaku for the heads up.)

For more gaming news, check out:

Winda Benedetti writes about games for msnbc.com. You can follow her tweets about games and other things right here on Twitter or join her in the stream right here on Google+.  You can check out the In-Game Facebook page right here.

View the original article here

Read More

Will new 3-D video service boost Nintendo 3DS sales?

 Nintendo

"Dinosaur Office" is one of the very first 3-D videos offered by Nintendo's new video service for the 3DS. Will original video offerings and Netflix streaming help sell the handheld game gadget?

The Nintendo 3DS is a sharp little gadget that lets you play video games in eye-grabbing 3-D without having to put on those goofy 3-D glasses ... and yet, this sharp little gadget isn't selling as well as Nintendo had hoped.

Perhaps it's the device's $250 price tag. Perhaps it's the lack of a signature Mario Bros. games. Perhaps people just aren't that excited about 3-D. No matter what it is, Tokyo analysts are now saying they expect Nintendo's first quarter earnings to disappoint — in part thanks to lackluster 3DS sales.

But Nintendo is soldiering on, rolling out new features for the 3DS to help increase its appeal and boost sales as we push toward the all-important holiday buying season.

This week the company launched a new video service that now allows 3DS owners watch short videos in sharp 3-D. And earlier this month, Nintendo also added the Netflix video service to the device. (Alas, the 3DS's new Netflix app — which requires an unlimited streaming subscription — does not stream movies in 3-D.)

Video to the rescue?
Starting this week, the new Nintendo Video application can be downloaded to 3DS devices for free from the online eShop, which arrived on the gadget just last month.

The video app delivers a hand-picked variety of short-form videos to your machine each week. New videos will be added and older videos will be removed on a regular basis to keep things fresh, Nintendo says. The videos themselves are two to three minutes in length and will include a mix of short films, music videos, comedy performances and movie trailers.

During this week's launch, 3DS owners can find two animated short films — one of them from famed funny site CollegeHumor.com called "Dinosaur Office" — along with a trailer for the "Captain America" movie.

While the pickings are currently pretty slim, Nintendo says that in the coming weeks the app will offer exclusive 3-D videos from music artists Jason DeRulo and Foster the People, as well as trippy performance troupe the Blue Man Group. But they'll really kick things off Wednesday with an exclusive 3-D music video from the band OK Go.

Will these 3-D video offerings from Nintendo help boost 3DS sales? Well ... maybe.

The 3-D video playback looks nice and crisp on the device's top-screen. Meanwhile having Netflix access on the 3DS definitely helps broaden its appeal. Certainly, in an age when smartphones have trained gadget owners to expect their devices to do many things at once, Netflix and Nintendo Video are the kind of feature boosts that the 3DS needs.

But what would make Nintendo Video a real boost for the 3DS is if it offered longer 3-D video fare (TV shows and movies). The 3DS is one of the few portable devices with glasses-free 3-D capabilities and having the ability to take 3-D movies on the go would make the gadget very appealing indeed. Nintendo has implied, in the past, that this was a possibility. So here's hoping that pans out in the not-too-distant future.

For the time being, however, I think it's the games that will ultimately have the real power to drag the Nintendo 3DS out of the sales doldrums. Though an alarming number of 3DS games have been canceled recently, Nintendo will be pulling out the big guns in the coming months. The company plans to launch a brand new "Super Mario" game for the 3DS along with "Mario Kart 3DS" this holiday. They will follow that up with "Luigi's Mansion 2" for the 3DS next spring.

Expecting disappointment
But before that happens, Haruka Mori, a technology analyst at Barclays Capital in Tokyo, reports that he expects Nintendo to post a $11.9 billion net loss in the April-June quarter and even miss its full-year financial targets.

Why haven't you bought a Nintendo 3DS?

Who needs the 3DS, I'm perfectly happy with my standard-issue DS.Who needs the 3DS, I've got my smartphone.The games! Where are the games?I'm saving my money for the PlayStation Vita.What the heck is 3DS? And is it contagious?VoteTotal Votes: 97

For the fiscal year ending March 2012, Nintendo is forecasting sales to rise 8.4 percent to 1.1 trillion yen ($14 billion) and net profit to climb 42 percent to 110 billion yen ($1.4 billion). The company also expects to move 16 million 3DS machines this fiscal year.

"It is not only the 3DS that is struggling at present," Mori said in his recently released report. "Sales of the legacy DS and the Wii — which has been discounted in Europe and the US — appear to be below plan."

And laying off the 3DS for a moment ... it seems some folks are having a hard time getting their heads around Nintendo's forthcoming Wii U game console and that's causing some of Nintendo's problems as well, Mori believes.

Though In-Game editor Todd Kenreck and I immediately saw the appeal of the device (due to launch next year) when we were given a sneak preview of it at the Electronic Entertainment Expo last month, Mori said the Wii U has failed to impress investors who have had difficulty judging the potential of the unusual machine with the beefy touch-screen controller.

But nobody — not even the most talented financial analysts — can see the future. And so I'd remind people who are ready to count Nintendo down and out, that much of the world mocked the Wii when it was first revealed. And that game machine went on to crush the competition and changed the face of the video gaming industry at large.

(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

For more game news, check out:

Winda Benedetti writes about games for msnbc.com. You can follow her tweets about games and other things right here on Twitter or join her in the stream right here on Google+. You can check out the In-Game Facebook page right here.

View the original article here

Read More