Japanese electronics manufacturer Nintendo released its annual financial statements recently, and it emerged that the company has been operating at a loss. Nintendo had an operating loss of 37.3 billion yen ($459.54 million) from 2011 to 2012, while net sales dropped by 36.2% compared to the last calculated period.
Nintendo also revealed that they have sold 13.53 million 3DS devices and 36 million 3DS games, which is considerably lower than the 80.2 million in sales from the original Nintendo DS. The handheld gaming device was met with a luke-warm response, forcing the company to drop its price on two occasion, resulting in a below-cost pricing.
While the company foresees a strong year ahead with the launch of the Wii U unit and a number of exclusive titles, they have announced that they will continue to sell the Nintendo 3DS below cost for at least a good portion of the year.
“For the Nintendo 3DS, its hardware has been sold below cost because of its significant price cut in the fiscal year ended March 2012. However, Nintendo expects to cease selling it below cost by the middle of the fiscal year ending 31 March 2013,” the company said in a statement.
In order to bolster their sales for the coming year, they also revealed that a new 2D Super Mario side-scrolling game will be launched in August, called New Super Mario Bros. 2. They also confirmed that the Wii U will mainly launch in Japan, Europe and the US “at the end of this calendar year”.
Charlie Fripp – Consumer Tech editor
