For the six fiscal months ended September 30th, 2010, Nintendo saw its first semi-annual loss in seven years, thanks mostly to a steep decline in DS handheld sales.
Year-over-year, DS sales (which include DS Lite, DSi and DSi XL) dropped to 6.69 million worldwide, from 11.7 million in the same period last year.
The drop in sales makes sense though, given that the market has been very close to saturation for some time. Additionally, the Nintendo 3DS is set for launch early next year, so consumers appear to be bidding their time and waiting on the new, updated handheld.
Helping contribute to Nintendo’s falling bottom line was Wii sales, which fell from 5.75 million to 4.97 million in the same time periods.
With falling console sales came falling software sales, as well.
The Yen has made significant gains against the US Dollar in the past two years, leaving Nintendo’s net income down 34 percent.
Result for: same time period
While the sale of video games dropped 21 percent in the third quarter in Japan, sales reported in the UK and the United States continued to grow despite the very visible economic woes. NPD Group, GfK Chart-Track Ltd. and Enterbrain Inc. all reported that video game sales grew by 15 percent in the third quarter and 8 percent in the United States. Overall, the sales of the three combined markets rose just 1 percent with Japan keeping the figure down.
“2007 was a banner year for the Japanese software market with the titles released in the third quarter of 2008 not being as highly anticipated as those released during the same time period in 2007,” said Ricky Tanimoto, a global marketing analyst at Enterbrain. “Also, software titles generally have stronger launch sales in Japan, which represent a large percentage of the total sales in Japan compared to the US and Britain.”
He said that overall video games sales in Japan will be largely unaffected by economic problems during the holiday season. “New portable hardware systems like Sony’s PSP-3000 and Nintendo’s DSi will prove to be driving market forces in Japan throughout the 2008 holiday season,” he said. The UK market is gearing up for its best-ever fourth quarter performance.
The top title in the U.S. during the quarter was Madden NFL 09 with 2.96 million unit sales, followed closely by Nintendo’s Wii Fit at 1.28 million units. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed came in at third place with 1.42 million sales.
Result for: same time period
According to the latest data from GFK Chart-Track, sales of the Microsoft Xbox 360 console have risen 32 percent over the last 4 days after the company announced a price cut on the console in the UK. On the other end, sales of the Sony PlayStation 3 were down 8 percent for the same time period.
The price cut drove the price down for the Arcade model to GBP 129.99, the Premium to GBP 169.99 and the Elite to GBP 229.99, marking the lowest point yet for next-gen consoles.
“[360] sales are up 32 per cent and PlayStation 3 sales are down eight per cent,” added Chart-Track’s Chris Poole.
Poole also noted that software sales were up, citing specifically the fact that the supermarket Morrisons was selling all chart titles for half off.
“We’ve had quite a big release with Star Wars: The Force Unleashed but we’re on the back of the Morrison’s promotion so we’ve had a drop in units but a rise in value,” noted Poole.
