Japanese toy maker Tomy has blamed a cut in its full year financial forecasts on competition from the Nintendo DS and Wii.
The company slashed its annual net profit forecasts by two thirds to ¥1.7 billion ($14m) for the year ending March 31st – down from a previous forecast of ¥5 billion and an average analyst projection of ¥4.4 billion.
According to
a Reuters report, the company indicated that sales of character goods and card games for boys were sluggish in Japan, as a result of Nintendo’s home and portable consoles which “stole demand for traditional toys”.
Ironically, the company left its sales forecast for the year untouched at ¥170 billion, in large part because of low-profit revenues gained from acting as a wholesaler of Nintendo products.
Tomy’s (known in Japan as TakaraTomy, following a
merger last year with Transformers toy creator Takara) forays into the video game industry have been sporadic and normally associated with each company’s primary toy lines, such as
Zoids and
Choro-Q (aka
Penny Racers), though it did co-publish some recent
Naruto titles in the U.S. with D3 Publisher.
