Nintendo could be heading for some troubled financial waters soon. According to Reuters, a report today from the Japanese-based Nikkei business daily claims that the game console company could record a recurring loss of 100 billion yen ($1.32 billion) for the first half of the company's fiscal year. The company is scheduled to report its latest financial results on Thursday.
Nintendo is facing a number of head winds at the moment. The 3DS portable console has not been the huge hit that many expected it to be, even with an $80 price cut earlier this year. The overall strength of the yen is cutting into Nintendo's profits and finally investors are skeptical about the success of the Wii U, which is scheduled to launch in 2012.
Quite frankly, Nintendo is starting to look a bit old fashioned at this point in its life. It still has some of the biggest game franchises of all time (Zelda, Super Mario, etc) but the company has time and time again shown a reluctance to move into areas of technology that the rest of the world seems to be interested in.
It didn't really care about Internet play until the launch of the Wii console. It still doesn't care about the the mobile phone game market, which is something that both Sony and Microsoft have their hands into right now. Yes, the Wii's motion sensing controller was innovative but the Wii U's big tablet-like controller seems like a step back compared to Microsoft's Kinect camera controller.
Nintendo needs to realize that the game industry is moving fast and it needs to keep up in between console launches. Otherwise it's going to be crushed by Sony and Microsoft.
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