29 replies to this topic

[Metal Ghost]

Ok, so this just got a bit worse for Nintendo: http://www.joystiq.c...its-sold-since/

"Nintendo enhances expected loss; 15 million 3DS units sold since launch"

"Nintendo has once again revised its expected loss for the fiscal year ending in March, widening its forecasted financial misfortune from 20Billion Yen ($258M) to 65Billion Yen ($839M). The increased loss comes a quarter after Nintendo switched its forecast from a 20Billion Yen profit to a loss".

Even looking past the financial lossess for a moment, their forecasting for their current fiscal year appears to have just been awful. Within 6 months to go from projecting a $258Million profit to a $839Million loss is pretty bad. No doubt exchange rates had a large impact as well though, as all Japanese companies are feeling the pinch from that.

I actually had added this comment to a previous thread that I created.  However, I thought it deserved it's own thread....but I also wanted to highlight this CG News Report that talks about Nintendo's wowes of late.  I had never heard of this outlet before today, but apparently they use CG in order to animate all of their news stories.  So what it lacks in polish you have to measure against it's turnaround time.  But in any event, it's pretty funny.  I think it takes some liberties though. (check out the Demi Moore 'news' report....hillarious).

http://www.nma.tv/ni...n-market-share/

[Austin]

It's a sad day when selling 15 million units in about a year can't keep you afloat, heh.

[GKC]

Austin, on Mon Jan 30, 2012 4:05 PM, said:

It's a sad day when selling 15 million units in about a year can't keep you afloat, heh.

Not to mention that the Wii has actually sold extremely well. Last time I looked it had shipped almost 100 million units world wide compared to like 65 mil for the 360 and 60 mil for the Playstation 3. Granted I don't know how many of those systems sold this year but overall the Wii and the DS have been quite successful for Nintendo. Hard to imagine Nintendo being in such a hard place.

Edited by GKC, Mon Jan 30, 2012 4:31 PM.

[Chuck D. Head]

Fortunately, they have a TON of cash in reserves. Forget the figures exactly, but something like 10 Billion has now dwindled to 8 Billion, so they have time to turn it around before the the lights get turned off.

[moycon]

So it appears when people in the past said that in the video game industry it's not the number of consoles you sell, but rather it's the sale of software where the money is made... they were right.

[pce_collector]

moycon, on Mon Jan 30, 2012 5:16 PM, said:

So it appears when people in the past said that in the video game industry it's not the number of consoles you sell, but rather it's the sale of software where the money is made... they were right.

No kidding. It seems like many people purchased Wiis when they were the hot new thing then got tired of them. A few of my non-gamer friends have them, but don't use them. The same goes for my gamer friends, too. They have Wiis, but they spend their money on new PS3 and XBox 360 titles instead. Wii owners like them aren't helping Nintendo's business one bit.

[moycon]

I personally know three households that bought the Wii specifically for either Wii Sports and/or Wii Fit. In one case they used the Wii Fit one time and then never touched it again!
A classic example of "keeping up with the Joneses"
I think this is proof positive having people not all that interested in video games, purchase your video game system, isn't going to help your bottom line in the end.
Although it should have been obvious a long time ago. Even when Nintendo had 3x as many Wii's in consumers hands as their closest competitor, they still weren't selling 3x the software.
Remember...software is where the real $$$ is made. Then the dismal launch of the 3DS. Shees, Nintendo better hope the Wii U is a HUGE success. I personally don't see it. I have a feeling those millions of people who bought into the Wii and now have them gathering dust in a corner aren't going to bite twice, but who knows. I also thought the Kinect would flop hard.

[Mord]

moycon, on Mon Jan 30, 2012 5:16 PM, said:

So it appears when people in the past said that in the video game industry it's not the number of consoles you sell, but rather it's the sale of software where the money is made... they were right.

When selling your consoles at a loss, it's always been right. The 3DS is pretty much the first time Nintendo sold a console/handheld at a loss - and it sold extremely well over the holiday weekend which doesn't help when you don't have a lot of appealing software to recover the cost just yet.  When they have a new Zelda (rather than rehashing a n64 title), a new mario, new etc etc for all their franchises, they'll probably start doing better again. Prior to this, Nintendo tended to be making money on consoles from launch. So selling a lot of those were good regardless of how much or how little software was sold for it. (Although naturally, the more the merrier.)

*addition*

However the number of consoles sold does have an effect regardless of system. It sets the Maximum Sales for any particular title. (Not that any particular title is likely to ever reach 1 sold for every console.) It's hard to sell 100,000 copies of a title if only 25,000 consoles were sold for instance.

Edited by Mord, Tue Jan 31, 2012 4:35 AM.

[onlysublime]

Yeah, my Wii has been collecting dust sadly.  I booted it up yesterday to redeem some Nintendo coins/points so I could get Dr. Mario Online for free (I think today is the last day for free Dr. Mario so jump in on it!) and forgot how old the Wii looks.  Forgot how low res the Wii is.  I still use it for the exclusives and for karaoke (Glee Karaoke!  don't shoot me!).  But even some mainstays like Wii Sports and Wii Resort have better implementations on the Kinect.  It's hard to go back to tapping the D-pad and setting up the angle and pressing buttons (at least let us save the default bowling position so that we don't have to redo it every time) when you can just move your actual body over an inch or so and then bowl in Kinect Sports.

And the horribly poor online support is unbelievable.  to go from the fully connected social system with Xbox to the Wii is really dramatic. A friend and I are thinking of keeping the Xbox on to do party chat while we play Dr. Mario on the Wii.  That's pretty sad.

As for Nintendo's economic state, they are doing fine.  This is the first loss year since 1982.  They have a huge mound of cash on hand.  Even though Nintendo only has video games as its business, they are worth roughly the same as the diverse Sony at $18 billion.  Their 3DS is their first sold-at-a-loss console.  If the Wii U stumbles, then Nintendo is in trouble.  but they've made more profit this gen than Sony and Microsoft put together.

[ninjarabbit]

Nintendo got lazy in 2011. They barely supported the Wii outside of LoZ, really didn't support the DS that much (though understandable), and the 3DS didn't do as well as expected and really didn't have too much come out for it other than Super Mario 3DS and Mario Kart 7.

[MagitekAngel]

Looks like Link couldn't keep Nintendo's coffers full by himself no matter how many of those gold rupees he finds on his quest!

[emkay]

To me the 3DS looks like they missed the point.... or didn't quite hear the shot

That 3D Screen is almost useless, and the rest of the "console" is weak.
Today people buy devices for having it all:
-Communications
-Entertainment
-Games

So they just got an "Android" phone for the same money and have fun playing "endless amounts" of games that were cheaper anyways.

[Mendon]

It isn't just Nintendo having problems, but Sony is in deep doo-doo also, reporting a $2.1 billion dollar loss and Kaz saying there are painful days ahead.

http://www.reuters.c...E8110E020120202

Yes, Sony does more than video games and all the varying departments may have contributed to a bottom line financial loss. But I'm sure that the gaming area.... including PSN problems, PSPGo failure, Vita development costs, online MMO's dwindling subscriber base, and more.... didn't soften the loss.


Mendon

Edited by Mendon, Thu Feb 2, 2012 10:20 AM.

[godslabrat]

Mendon, on Thu Feb 2, 2012 10:19 AM, said:

It isn't just Nintendo having problems, but Sony is in deep doo-doo also, reporting a $2.1 billion dollar loss and Kaz saying there are painful days ahead.

http://www.reuters.c...E8110E020120202

Yes, Sony does more than video games and all the varying departments may have contributed to a bottom line financial loss. But I'm sure that the gaming area.... including PSN problems, PSPGo failure, Vita development costs, online MMO's dwindling subscriber base, and more.... didn't soften the loss.

This is significant.  If gaming across the board is hurting, it's not such a big deal that Nintendo specifically took a hit.

[Ransom]

It's 1983 all over again.  Only, this time it's gone global!  Hide your games, boys!!

[moycon]

Mendon, on Thu Feb 2, 2012 10:19 AM, said:

Yes, Sony does more than video games and all the varying departments may have contributed to a bottom line financial loss. But I'm sure that the gaming area.... including PSN problems, PSPGo failure, Vita development costs, online MMO's dwindling subscriber base, and more.... didn't soften the loss.

Don't forget 3DTV. What was supposed to be the next big thing in entertainment turned out to be a cash drain. Sony spent an outrageous amount of cash pushing these and consumer interest has been tepid at best. I agree though, the PSN issues and other things you mentioned certainly didn't help!

[emkay]

Ransom, on Thu Feb 2, 2012 2:56 PM, said:

It's 1983 all over again.  Only, this time it's gone global!  Hide your games, boys!!

No. It's not 1983 again. In 83 it was a crash of the games market.
Today the market has just changed.
From "console" playing to "mobile phone" playing.

[godslabrat]

moycon, on Thu Feb 2, 2012 3:32 PM, said:

Sony spent an outrageous amount of cash pushing these and consumer interest has been tepid at best.

The part that makes me worry is that since Sony (and, to be fair, many others) spent so much money pushing 3DTV, they won't want to give up the ghost even after it's considered a lost cause... since to admit defeat is to admit all that was money wasted.  Witness, Sony's clinging to MiniDisc and ATRAC long after both were snubbed by consumers.

[swlovinist]

Nintendo will be fine.  The 3DS stumbled out of the gate, but I think will be profitable for them in time.  The Wii U could change things for them...hopefully they release a system that people want to play.  The Wii for me was a hit and miss, I mostly have been playing Zelda Skyward Sword and console exclusives on it.  I predict that this next year is going to be an "off" year for all three.

[Mord]

emkay, on Fri Feb 3, 2012 3:52 AM, said:

Ransom, on Thu Feb 2, 2012 2:56 PM, said:

It's 1983 all over again.  Only, this time it's gone global!  Hide your games, boys!!

No. It's not 1983 again. In 83 it was a crash of the games market.
Today the market has just changed.
From "console" playing to "mobile phone" playing.

While I agree with you, it's still a bit like 83. Back then it was a console crash in NA (not worldwide). Computer gaming seemed to pick up however and some console developers survived the crash by abandoning it for computers. (Such as Activision)

But it's not 83 all over again until a crash actually happens. Until then it's just publishers complaining they're not making as much money as they want to make.

[Ransom]

emkay, on Fri Feb 3, 2012 3:52 AM, said:

Ransom, on Thu Feb 2, 2012 2:56 PM, said:

It's 1983 all over again.  Only, this time it's gone global!  Hide your games, boys!!

No. It's not 1983 again. In 83 it was a crash of the games market.
Today the market has just changed.
From "console" playing to "mobile phone" playing.

Just to be clear, that was a joke.

[toptenmaterial]

^^ "Hide your games!"

[skaredmask]

<p>Don't alwats belive what you read. Microsoft must of loss 100s of billions of dollars with the xbox 360 with its with hardware returns/claims and an other 100 billion on there software over the last 5-7 years and there still profitable company. Most company's do suffer losses however its not really a loss. In most cases in retail is that when a product is returned that is a loss however they get refunded from the manufacturer.

Edited by skaredmask, Tue Feb 21, 2012 6:47 AM.

[toptenmaterial]

I don't know about hundreds of billions, but Microsoft did lose five billion on the first Xbox. These consoles are considered successful only because the parent companies have the warchests to outlast the competition. Brillient systems like the Dreamcast fold when the manufacturer runs out of dough to compete. Both of these systems were revered, but only one company could keep up....

[moycon]

skaredmask, on Tue Feb 21, 2012 6:17 AM, said:

Don't alwats belive what you read.

Me thinks this holds especially true in regards to the rest of your post!

Microsoft gaming division has been making a profit since 2008, and yes that was after the 1 billion dollars they spent in 2007 to replace bricked 360's.
MS is certainly a profitable company though.
There has been rumor's that the 360 is going to have a touch screen controller similar to the Wii U.
I for one am hoping that is just another case of "not believing everything you read", because in my opinion that would be a huge mistake!