Weakened 3DS sales lead to lower forecast for Nintendo

Nintendo recorded a slightly larger loss than expected for the first six months of the current fiscal year ending March 2013, due to weaker sales of the Nintendo 3DS overseas than it had anticipated, appreciation of the yen and costs related to the upcoming Wii U's launch. As a result, the company has notably lowered its forecast for the 2013 fiscal year from ¥20 billion ($250.6 million) in profits to ¥6 billion ($75.2 million). Despite Nintendo 3DS hardware sales of 5.06 million units during the first half of the fiscal year, and software sales of 19.03 million, Nintendo said that 3DS sales in overseas markets had not matched the company's expectations. In comparison, the handheld sold 3.07 million hardware units during the same period in the last fiscal year, and has sold 22.2 million units to date. It is expected to sell 17.5 million units during the full current fiscal year. In terms of 3DS software, Nintendo said that strong sales of flagship titles like New Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 meant that the handheld now has lifetime software sales of 64.45 million. Elsewhere, Pokemon Black and White 2 has sold 4.26 million units to date while the original DS slipped to 0.98 million hardware units sold, declining due to the 3DS. Mario Party 9 for the Wii sold over 1 million copies, while Wii hardware sales fell to 1.32 million as the console winds down for the launch of the Wii U. For the fiscal half ended September 30, 2012, Nintendo posted revenues of ¥201.0 billion ($2.5 billion), down 6.8 percent compared to ¥215.7 billion ($2.7 billion) year-over-year, and losses of ¥28.0 billion ($350.8 million), compared to losses of ¥70.3 billion ($880.7 million) year-over-year. The company had previously forecast that it would see revenues of ¥230 billion ($2.9 billion) and losses of ¥20 billion ($250 million) during this fiscal half.