Quarterly profit continues to elude Nintendo despite reduced losses

Nintendo's fortunes could slowly be on the road to recovery, as the company posts a reduced year-on-year loss for the first quarter of its new fiscal year.  For the three month reporting period ending June 30th 2012, Nintendo reported a net loss of ¥17.23 billion ($220.5 million USD), an improvement from the ¥25.52 billion ($326.5 million USD) loss which the company was hit with during the same timeframe last year.  However, Nintendo's quarterly revenue also fell to ¥84.8 billion ($1.09 billion USD), a year-on-year drop of nearly 10 percent.

Unfavorable currency exchange rates and slowing Wii hardware sales which hit 710,000 units worldwide were largely to blame for the decreased quarterly revenue.  As Nintendo paves the way for its new Wii U hardware later this year, the 3DS holds the fort with sales of 1.86 million units thus far into the current year thanks to well-received titles like Mario Tennis Open, Mario Kart 7 and Super Mario 3D Land.

While profitability from the 3DS has improved since its lukewarm launch last year, the company admits it is still selling the hardware at a loss.  However, Nintendo expects to shrug off the brunt of its drastic 3DS price cut and finally start making some serious money from the handheld by the second half its financial year later this October.

Indeed, Nintendo is expecting to be back in black overall by the end of its current financial year compared to the first annual loss it walked out of; the company is maintaining its full-year forecast of ¥20 billion ($255.8 million USD) in net income, and revenue of ¥820 billion ($10.49 billion USD).  In anticipation of its Wii U hardware launch, the company is forecasting combined Wii U and Wii hardware sales of 10.5 million units.  The Wii U isn't the only new hardware Nintendo is launching this year: thanks to the upcoming 3DS XL just on the horizon, Nintendo expects 3DS hardware sales to reach 18.5 million units by March 2013.