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Nintendo lowers forecast from ¥55B profit to ¥25B loss [3DS 18M->13.5; WiiU 9M->2.8M]

Dicer

Banned
They need to do something and quick, I'm one to usually defend the big N, but fuck...spend some of the warchest for exclusives to save the U and fucking fix management STAT.
 

Instro

Member
I really like Iwata, and think he really understands what Nintendo is and needs to be.

I know it's popular to hate on him and blame him for the short term losses like this, but I honestly am no confident that there is anyone better suited to lead than him.

I think it would be a huge misstep, and a massive blow to Nintendo to remove Iwata.

He is a rather unique person and one of the few people qualified who actually cares about video games, regardless of whether he stays as head honcho the entire upper management needs an overhaul though.
 

cafemomo

Member
Iwata can still stay at Nintendo as the face of Nintendo Directs, but his role as CEO of NoJ & NoA should be thrown down the gutter.
 

cw_sasuke

If all DLC came tied to $13 figurines, I'd consider all DLC to be free
No surprise there really. Nintendo has really shit the bed with the Wii U.

They also had a bunch of shitty decisions when it came to the 3DS and "saving" the plattform was also very expensive for them. 3DS is a great systm and has a great libary - but after 3DS and WiiU i hope Konno wont design any of their system in the future. They are way to expensive for what they offer, when the same could have been realized for less by using off the shelves hardware. This is a world where proper tablets for kids can be bought for less than 150 bucks.

Proper cheap and realiable hardware + goo games - thats all we want from you Nintendo. Dont over rely on gimmicks all the time, they are not the answer for every problem. Next handheld must launch for less than 150usd and the console for less than 250 - even better would be 200.

You arent Apple, charging 250 for the 3DS at launch and nearly 400 for the WiiU....wtf.
 

mobius006

Member
How do you not see this coming 3 or 6 months ago?

I got a 3ds XL and a wiiu for this fiscal year. Love both. But come on.
 

stryke

Member
That has to be one of the worst misses in the history books for a major public company. Just astounding that they kept their ridiculous forecasts until the bitter end.

Heads will roll.

Well maybe not, because...Nintendo.

Wasn't vita a huge miss as well? Can't quite remember...
 
k-bigpic.gif

Good thing the Year of Luigi continues so Nintendo might have a shot
 

EulaCapra

Member
Article up.

Nintendo Co. (7974) revised its forecast for the fiscal year to a net loss of 25 billion yen ($240 million), cutting its projections for the Wii U console and saying year-end software sales were “far below” expectations.

The world’s largest maker of video-game machines had projected a profit of 55 billion yen as it counted on Christmas shoppers to revive stagnant sales of its Wii U console. The company cut forecasts for Wii U sales to 2.8 million units from 9 million.

The company posted a quarterly loss of 8 billion yen in October after cutting the price of the console in the face of new machines from Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp. President Satoru Iwata also is trying to lure consumers who prefer playing games on tablet computers and smartphones including Apple Inc.’s iPhone.

Nintendo also cut its forecast for sales of its handheld 3DS player to 13.5 million units from 18 million, and for sales of 3DS software to 66 million units.
 

kurbaan

Banned
It was pretty idiotic for them to set such high forecasts. Everyone saw this coming and if nintendo didn't then there is not much to say.
 
Finally something achievable, maybe.

Will be interesting to finally see what games they green lighted or funded when they saw the situation they where in last year.

I suspect this means Mario kart is most definetly not march so it gets into next FY
 

hongcha

Member
It seems like Iwata really believed SM3DW would help them meet their goal of 9mil. After the dust settled post-holiday and the sales numbers rolled in, it must have finally dawned upon him that that was not going to happen. It is crazy how delusional he was.
 
woah woah woah

They can lower the Wii U forecast that much without heads rolling? I mean... wow. I honestly thought I was hallucinating just now when I saw the thread title.
 
This is all just a feint so that investors will be pleased and amazed once the Wii U actually does sell 9 million by the end of the FY.

Iwata is playing four dimensional chess here.
 

Chittagong

Gold Member
It will be interesting to see their updated forecast for the next FY for Wii U.

If the Wii U estimate for next FY is substantially better than this they will seem delusional and out of touch again, having unrealistic optimism for the console selling power of Mario Kart and Smash Bros, and set themselves up for another profit warning.

If the Wii U estimate for next FY is similar to this it seriously brings to question their ability to sustain the platform, or even console manufacturing, with such low volumes, and almost certainly kills 95% of retail support.

They are screwed if they do and screwed if they don't.

Third pillar time indeed.
 

Instro

Member
They also had a bunch of shitty decisions when it came to the 3DS and "saving" the plattform was also very expensive for them. 3DS is a great systm and has a great libary - but after 3DS and WiiU i hope Konno wont design any of their system in the future. They are way to expensive for what they offer, when the same could have been realized for less by using off the shelves hardware. This is a world where proper tablets for kids can be bought for less than 150 bucks.

I would think Genyo Takeda is most to blame for hardware decisions.
 

Horseticuffs

Full werewolf off the buckle
I would not want to be standing outside of Iwata's office window just about now...

This is all just a feint so that investors will be pleased and amazed once the Wii U actually does sell 9 million by the end of the FY.

Iwata is playing four dimensional chess here.

That is some Scanners-level mindblowing shit right there, man.
 

Schnozberry

Member
This is all just a feint so that investors will be pleased and amazed once the Wii U actually does sell 9 million by the end of the FY.

Iwata is playing four dimensional chess here.

If he can operate in for dimensions, Jr should probably go back and tell past Iwata to make some different choices.
 

Sandfox

Member
I'm so looking forward to it. Proper account systems, crossbuy, making games in diversified genres yes, yessssss. I just hope they don't change too much and ruin what they're good at.

That really doesn't have a connection with Iwata being CEO and the first two things you mentioned.
I'm still trying to undetstand how Nintendo lost 240 million USD. Wii U is such an epic disaster.

Price drops cost money in addition to the other issues and they probably spent some money coming up with the 2DS design or something.
 
The problems the WiiU faces can only be the culmination of several years of incompetent decisions, even before the losses began. How likely is it going from market leader to this kind of trainwreck? I wouldn't even care about financials as long as the games are good, but while the 3DS is okay enough, the WiiU really just gets what it deserves, worst console I've bought so far. And whoever's responsible for this must have had the foresight of a goldfish and clearly lack the ability to ever regain momentum. So yeah, some of these higher ups need to go asap and bring in new people to prepare a proper next generation for Nintendo.
 

Raonak

Banned
Nintendo's forecasts were a ticking time bomb. It was only a matter of time before reality would catch up with their insane 9M wiiU forecast.

Nintendo post-2013 is gonna be an interesting one.
 
I'm not sure why people hope so much for a change in leadership, when it would likely have consequences no one who's fond of Nintendo would like.

Last week Nintendo's shares started to rise due to an industry rumout about Nintendo announcing smartphone plans at the end of the month. In light of this news, it wouldn't surprise me if something leaked internally and this is indeed going to happen.

Nintendo putting their old games (NES/SNES/GB era) at a slow pace on iOS wouldn't be a bad thing for them. It'd give them a lot of money to keep pumping into their console and handheld divisions. I remember Hideo Baba basically saying that they only put old Tales games on phones because it makes them a lot of money, but they aren't going to actually make flagship Tales titles for it.
 
It was obvious from the start that those projections were overly ambitious. So why did they make them in the first place?

Did they really think SM3DW was the "one game (that) can change everything"?

I don't expect Iwata to resign, simply because he was hand-picked by Yamauchi, and I suspect the idea was for Iwata to guide the company for as long as possible. But things are looking extremely bleak. Nintendo had better have something as surprising and huge as a Final Fantasy 7 remake coming to the Wii U, and they had better announce it soon.
 

Striek

Member
Hmm pretty surprising. I thought their challenge was to hit profitability whilst salvaging the Wii U. Since they clearly were doing a piss poor effort of the latter I thought they were focusing 100% on profitability. This is extremely bad news for Nintendo.

Particularly the 3DS result. That is terrible and less expected than the Wii U result.
 
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