“Nintendo Co. (7974) posted a fourth-quarter net loss that was greater than analyst estimates amid flagging demand for its titles and as the company struggles to lure players back from inexpensive games on smartphones,” Takashi Amano reports for Bloomberg. “The world’s largest maker of video-game machines had a net loss of 33.4 billion yen ($329 million) in the three months ended March, compared with the 27.9 billion-yen loss analysts had estimated. Nintendo’s Germany-traded shares dropped.”
“President Satoru Iwata is struggling to revive the company’s fortunes as more people turn to games played on smartphones and tablets. Nintendo sold 2.72 million Wii U units in the year ended March, missing its own forecast set in January, which itself was lowered from before,” Amano reports. “Games played on Apple Inc. (AAPL) iPhones and handsets using Google Inc.’s Android operating system generated more sales than those on Nintendo and Sony Corp. (6758)’s handheld players for the first time last year, according to researcher App Annie Ltd. Wii U sales will recover to 3.6 million units this fiscal year as games including Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. boost demand, Iwata said at a briefing today.”
“Nintendo’s German shares fell as much as 4.6 percent to 74.79 euros in Frankfurt trading,” Amano reports. “The Kyoto-based company declined 2.7 percent to close at 10,670 yen in Tokyo trading before the announcement. The shares have dropped 24 percent this year and 76 percent since June 29, 2007, when Apple Inc. released the first iPhone.”
Read more in the full article here.
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This news has shown a good competitive ecosystem is more important than market share .
Nintendo has big market share then ?
Apple Eco system is better than it . Then bye bye to Nintendo .
Let’s see now, CEOs ridicule Apple around Jan 2007 and since then what?
Moto, Nokia, Palm disappeared. Sony, MS, Dell, Nintendo down.
Which CEOs should be fired now, though that won’t necessarily save the companies.
Well no d’uh theyre failing. They dont have games. They launched a new console with no games. Real smart. The wii u, a year after being launched finally started seeing game. Then on top of that nothing in there product line makes sense.
The wii U should of come out years ago not a yr before the PS4 and Xbone.
The gamepad should be their 3ds hardware not some stupid controller specific to the wii u.
The Wii U since they did release it this late absolutely should have been named something else.
Theyre just being stupid.
Mario and Sonic and whatever IP they have should be all over iOS. They’ve fiddled while Rome was burning. It’s probably too late, too. A whole generation has more interest in angry birds and plants vs. zombies.
Sonic is Sega, not Nintendo, and is available on iOS. The port is pretty well done.
——RM
Apple – buy a big stake in Nintendo and get those games on iOS before Google beat you to it!!
Just IMHO: Keep the long, boring, repetitive games like Mario OFF iOS please. I never have understood why people waste their lives on those OMG brain-numbing games.
I guess the novelty of jumping around in front of your TV and flinging the controller at the screen has officially worn off.
How’s that “no Nintendo games on smart phones” policy workin’ for yah Prezzie Satoru Iwata?
Beyond a new mario kart release at the end of the month what does a Wii U owner have to look forward to ?
Not much.
My wife will be brokenhearted if Nintendo croaks. She loves Nintendo. She’s owned every one of their consoles. She even found and bought a Virtual Boy at a garage sale.
I got her a Wii U for her birthday this year. I wasn’t going to get one because I thought the console was a flop that would gather dust, but she wore me down, and she’s been happily playing it every night.
I hope Nintendo can pull it together. I want to think that there’s still a place for more whimsical gameplay in a game market saturated with first-person shooters and war games.
——RM
Agreed. Nintendo makes great games for younger gamers and families to share. Even hard core gamers enjoy a game of Mario Kart. Apple needs to lock up exclusive access to these titles for iOS. Now!