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?Nintendo? Cuts ?Financial Year Profit Estimate In Half, Nintendo NX Coming Later This Year

By Stephen Jordan
Published on: 09:12 PST, Feb 27, 2016

Nintendo hasn’t released a new console in a while, and while the die-hard loyal Nintendo fans await for the next console announcement, the gaming company has seen a decline in their hardware sales. Nintendo 3DS sales have taken a dive as well, which has resulted in the Japanese company cutting its financial year profit estimate in half. It was originally ¥35 billion, which is equivalent to $310 million, and now it is ¥17 billion, equivalent to $151 million.

“A combination of currency fluctuations and lower-than-expected sales of the 3DS forced Nintendo to cut its annual operating income forecast by about 34 percent,” SuperData Research CEO Joost van Dreunen says. “The release of new hardware has been disappointing, which led Nintendo to reduce its hardware forecast by 1 million and its software by 9 million units for 2015/16.”

Nintendo’s overall revenue for the year has been lowered to 12 percent, to ¥500 billion, which is $4.4 million. The company has also lowered the Nintendo 3DS hardware and software fourth quarter sales estimates. There’s going to be a new Legend of Zelda game released later on this year and based on that, Nintendo increased its sales estimates on their Wii U hardware by 17 percent and increased the sales estimates on the Wii U games by 75 percent.

“If you own a Wii U, you have one,” Stephanie Llamas, director of research and consumer insights at SuperData Research, said. “But if you don’t own one now, you’re not going to buy it because the console hasn’t received a great reception, and a whole new console is coming out this year.”

The Nintendo NX is the new console the company announced last year, but has not provided very much info on the device and what to expect. What’s interesting is that the NX is not going to be an extension or an upgrade of the Wii or Wii U, and it is in fact going to be something completely new and different, confirmed by Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima. A new Super Smash Bros. title, as well as the Legend of Zelda game, are going to be launch titles for the Nintendo NX when it’s released. We can expect more information on the NX this year at E3.

This certainly isn’t the first time Nintendo has had problems getting their consoles to become popular with the overwhelming amount of gamers. The Nintendo 3DS, their smartphones, and tablets, as well as the mobile games are beginning to cut into the company’s profits.

“Nintendo has had setbacks before and has come back from them,” Llamas said. “I don’t think they’re going to give up that easily. They have cash flow and they’re doing well revenue-wise. They’ve learned a lot from their failures in the past, and they’re also moving to mobile.”

The company has been through a lot of ups and downs, and if the Nintendo NX is truly taking the gaming company in a new direction and providing gamers with a new experience, it could be enough to keep them above water. It’s entirely possible that it could do better than the Wii U. Nintendo’s component suppliers are going to be giving them enough hardware to allow them to ship nearly 11 million NX devices across the globe this year. This alone could be enough to make the NX a bigger success than Wii U in one move, if the NX is indeed great.

In the beginning of February, Nintendo began registration for a free-to-play messaging-based application called Miitomo. President Tatsumi Kimishima says that this smartphone app is going to feature one of Nintendo’s most popular characters, without saying exactly who it is, which means it could either be, of course, Mario, or Link from the Legend of Zelda series, Donkey Kong or Star Fox.

[Photo by Kim White/Nintendo of America via Getty Images]

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