Nintendo Suffers First-Half Net Loss

Officials from Nintendo of Japan have announced that the company expects to record a loss of 3 billion yen ($27m) for the six months ended September 30, instead of the previously projected profit of 15 billion yen ($136m). The company very rarely posts a loss and this news will come as some embarrassment, even though the revision is largely due to fluctuations in the price of the dollar and a stronger than expected yen – issues which have affected the company in the past due to its huge reserves of cash and property holdings outside of Japan. Game sales did have some affect on the change though as first half sales totaled approximately 210 billion yen ($1.9b), which is 9% short of the company’s 230 billion yen ($2.1b) estimate for the period. The company’s full year profits have also been revised downwards from 65 billion yen ($588m) to 60 billion yen ($542m).