Nintendo's losses narrow as 3DS margins improve

Nintendo was not able to turn its business around last quarter, posting notable (but reduced) losses. The company admitted that, while sales of the Nintendo 3DS were "robust" in Japan, global 3DS hardware sales only reached 1.86 million units during the quarter, boosting the total number of 3DS handhelds sold up to 19 million. Nintendo is confident in the performance of the handheld for the rest of this fiscal year, however, forecasting that the 3DS will sell 18.5 million units for the year up to April 2013. It also noted that, while it is still selling the 3DS at a loss, that margin is improving. Nintendo began selling the 3DS at a loss last year after the hefty price cut on the hardware. In terms of software, 3DS software sales topped 7.39 million during the quarter, bumping the overall figure up to 52.8 million units sold. Elsewhere, the Nintendo DS sold 540,000 hardware units, although software units saw a boost to 8.48 million sold during the quarter thanks to the Japanese release of Pokemon Black and White 2, which has sold 2.45 million units to date. In comparison, Nintendo Wii hardware sales topped 710,000 for the quarter, while Wii software saw a similar boost to the DS with 8.47 million software units sold, thanks to Mario Party 9 sales. For the quarter ended June 30, 2012, Nintendo posted revenues of ¥84.8 billion ($1.09 billion), down 9.7 percent compared to ¥93.9 billion ($1.20 billion) year-over-year, and losses of ¥17.2 billion ($220.5 million), reduced compared to losses of ¥25.5 billion ($326.5 million) in the same quarter last year. Update: Due to a misinterpretation, the original version of this story erroneously reported that Nintendo is no longer selling the 3DS at a loss versus its manufacturing cost. The story has been updated to fix this error.