Nintendo Post Poor Quarterly Financial Performance: Analysts Question Veteran Games Maker's Future

Despite beating research firm Nikkei's pessimistic predictions, Nintendo has revealed a massive ¥70 billion (£576 million) loss for the quarter ending 30 September, leading to fresh speculation about the games industry veteran's future as a console maker.

The loss falls short of Nikkei's original ¥100 billion loss estimate, but is nevertheless twice Nintendo's original ¥35 billion prediction.

As well as falling Wii and DS sales, according to the company's financial statement, the current strong state of Japan's yen compared to ailing currencies worldwide accounted for at least ¥52.4 billion (£431 million) of the company's losses.

The uneven state of foreign currencies reportedly caused the loss as a result of Nintendo's reliance on business in areas with shrinking economies and or cheapening currencies. The discrepancy in currency value decreases the revenue taken in per sale by Nintendo in the ailing territories, thus leading to the sizable ¥52.4 loss.

Despite this, ailing sales continued to play a major part in Nintendo's ongoing financial troubles. The company's net sales were just under target coming in at ¥215.7 billion (£1.7 billion) instead of the predicted ¥240 billion (£2 billion).

Despite improving on its performance last quarter the Nintendo 3DS continued to underwhelm. According to Nintendo only 3.07 million 3DS units were sold during the quarter. Software sales were also somewhat low with the company reporting 8.13 units of software -- games -- sold during the quarter.

Nintendo's statement also confirmed that it had sold 3.35 million Wiis worldwide, with a further 36.45 million software units shifting alongside the console.

The sales led to a drop in Nintendo's predictions for its yearly net income from an estimated ¥20 billion (£165 million) profit to a ¥20 billion loss.

The news of yet another loss by Nintendo has in turn led to speculation that the company's Wii U may be its last console, with the company having placed all its resources in the next generation machine's research and development.

At the time this article was written Nintendo had not responded to comment regarding its ongoing losses.