Nintendo suffers $97 million loss despite Mario Kart success
Nintendo posted its first-quarter results, and a big loss in income came among good news about Mario Kart 8 and the sales of Wii U.
Nintendo has suffered a $97 million quarterly loss, despite the rapid sales success of Mario Kart 8.
In its first-quarter financial results released today, Nintendo reported a loss of 9.92 billion yen, equivalent to $97 million in US dollars. 3DS sales are down, hitting 820,000 units as compared with 1.4 million in the same period last year. The company is still aiming for 12 million units for the entire fiscal year.
In more positive news, Wii U sales shot up compared to the same period last year, from 160,000 to 510,000. Mario Kart 8 has done particularly well for the company, moving 2.82 million copies worldwide. Nintendo sold 4.39 million units of software, most of which was Mario Kart 8.
In a supplemental information section, Nintendo lists its upcoming slate for the remainder of 2014. Smash Bros for 3DS and the Pokemon remakes are the heavy-hitters on 3DS, while Hyrule Warriors, Bayonetta, and Smash Bros for Wii U round out its console offerings. However, Smash Bros is still listed as a vague "Holiday 2014" on Wii U.
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replySteve Watts posted a new article, Nintendo suffers $97 million loss despite Mario Kart success.
Nintendo posted its first-quarter results, and a big loss in income came among good news about Mario Kart 8 and the sales of Wii U.-
Whoa. That hurts. If they can't break even with Mario Kart 8 topping the charts, how are they going to survive next year after the buzz for Smash Bros and Mario Kart dies down?
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Huge warchest? They'll do just fine.
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I know they won't go bankrupt, they can always go third party for Sony, Microsoft, and PC. But will they be able to survive in the hardware business? I think their only chance is to do the hybrid thing I mentioned in my post below.
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As far as I'm concerned them becoming a pure software company would be the best thing that ever happened
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Mario Kart 8 was available for one month of the entire quarter reported. It obviously isn't enough to make up the shortfall but its still something to consider.
Consoles are kind of fucked in Japan. The PS4 is selling less than the Wii U and Sony as a whole is reporting a $1.1 billion dollar loss. The XBox One is selling poorly in NA and EU and it'll definitely fail in Japan like the 360 did.
So yeah, consoles, I dunno. Maybe Nintendo is the canary in the coalmine since they're the only purely game-centric company that also makes hardware.
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Not surprised by this. When you just focus on revising the same handful of games without adding anything new or offering more games of substance, of course you're going to be losing money.
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Looking at the pdf, most of the lost is coming from a greater than expected decline in the 3DS line. Both Hardware and software sales for the 3DS have fallen off a cliff. Especially in Japan. If Mario kart 8 wasn't such a huge hit, they would be in full on panic mode.
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Motherfuckers need to get Dragon Quest 7 over here, and I'll be using my 3DS every damn day.
I'm out of RPGs, and they seem allergic to bringing even the biggest ones over with any kind of timeliness. -
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Is this because smartphones and app stores has eaten into their mobile gaming market?
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In comparison to mobile games, portable gaming games are insanely priced.
When I look at the value proposition for a $0.99 - $4.99 Appstore app vs. a 3DS game, it's obvious what I'm going to do.-
Not sure what games you're comparing, but Zelda: A Link Between Worlds is definitely worth 35 bucks.
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No doubt, but I don't have time to play that stuff anymore. If I play a game while I'm on the go, it's going to be for 5 minutes.
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the issue really isn't quality, they're both competing for the same time out of my day and one has the advantage of being on a device I already own and always have on me
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The dummies aren't putting out games. Nintendo not courting 3rd party devs for their systems has been a constant problem since GameCube, basically.
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Maybe with the WiiU, but the 3DS has had plenty of third party games come out.
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It did, but it's been slowing down a lot over the last year.
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Yeah, the market for Nintendo games has just shrunk. Sadly, most adults and teenagers are only interested in the Call of Duty and Madden blockbusters, with maybe a little Tomb Raider, Bioshock, and Far Cry on the side. On the other hand, the super casual mobile crowd is content passing time with another endless runner or shallow puzzle game.
Nintendo is becoming a niche company, and there's not much they can do about it. Could they start putting out gritty 3rd and 1st person action games like Ubisoft and Activision? Sure, but no guarantee it would be successful. It would be better for them to just become a smaller company, and try to keep all those small niches into their tent.
I think if they stuck to a hybrid console/handheld system from here on out, they could stay in hardware and be moderately successful.-
I think they need to be more aggressive with studio and IP purchases. Starting with Capcom.
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adults and teenagers are still plenty interested in Nintendo's IP, just not so interested that they're willing to first buy a piece of hardware that excludes them from so much of the rest of the value of the console industry. Nintendo's console value proposition is similar to other consoles on the positive (you get these great exclusives) but with a huge list of negatives that Sony and MS don't have when competing against each other (essentially giving up 3rd party support, quality online services, hardware power). So even though their exclusives may be stronger (even significantly stronger) they're constantly fighting an uphill battle by refusing to make a console that caters to the full suite of what people expect from a $300+ machine.
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you can agree or disagree, I don't necessarily agree with it either but for the sake of argument I'll even concede that their exclusives are strictly better than elsewhere but their other business strategies still lead to a massive uphill battle despite that significant pro in their favor
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It's not like their studios are just sitting there doing nothing. They would either have to open more studios, or hire more third party studios like they're doing with Platinum. Given how some of their games aren't selling to hot, that could be recipe for even larger losses. See Ocelot's post above. The market has just changed, Nintendo will have to change their identity completely IF they want to play at the scale of EA, Activision, Sony et al.
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Maybe the next Mario Kart will be available on PS4/Xbone.
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they need a big culture shift. hard mark an EOL for the WiiU at about 2016, and use some of that bank they have to make an actual game console. that thing is poison. suck it up, drop with the gimmicks, and make a system ~25% more powerful than the PS4 at the same price with a controller for humans, perform all the oral necessary to get some actual games on it. stop being arrogant and and undermining to third parties. have a major Mario at launch, a zelda 6 months out, and a metroid about a year out and superior versions of other franchises. CODBLOPS7 should have its best version be on the PC/MEGA-NES, have R&D1 (or whatever the fuck its called now) constantly grinding away on zelda/mario so they can get a new one out each year, in staggered release (mario one year, zelda the next, extra year of dev, new mario, year later new zelda etc).
mario/zelda just doesnt have the quality it once had, and its out of peoples brainspace. they are too far between and just not that good anymore. they are still top shelf games, but they are no longer THE top shelf games. so they need to make more of them, more often, because they still sale well enough but they cant sustain a company with such far apart releases. one reason mario did so well was because a new mario product was coming out all the time back in the golden days. people played the shit out of one, and got hyped for the next one. there were 3 marios on the NES and about a half dozen spinoff games. it was in peoples brainspace. now noone cares, because they aren't that special anymore and they arent common enough to maintain a fanbase. a game selling 3 million copies is just not a big deal anymore.
also put a hit out on Team Ninja, and offer the most exquisite anal to Retro to start making Prime games again. this is a personal request for them to make Vitek R happy. probably also a good business strategy too.
get rid of the gamepad/wiimote. sell a Gamepad accessory if you want, but absolutey not as part of the system. it is the first actual good thing nintendo has created hardware wise since the analog stick and its also way too expensive and just not useful enough to be worth the bloat it adds to the price of the system. for most people its just an ungainly controller with a useless screen, and thats how developers will always treat it too. its interesting enough that a 99$ version for the MEGA NES might sell a year or two after the system launches for remoteplay/media control, but fuck putting it in the box.
elevate Metroid, Mario Kart, Donkey Kong, F-Zero, Starfox to a higer focus. these are games with absolutely rabid fan bases that have been massively neglected while nintendo slowly dwindles down to an occasional mario/zelda that sells at mediocre levels. they have such STAGGERINGLY AWESOME ip that they seem to just not care about, all so they can focus on M/Z. hire more people. Retro studios is one of the best developers in the business, and they let them go for a poppy trendy sexed up Metroid from Team Titja that everyone hated, and they had to realize everyone would hate.
decisions like that are what makes me think N might just be too far up its own rabbit hole to save. they have so much money they could fail for many more years before it became serious, and i worry thats what they will do. just keep bleeding out until its too late to save. they are the least agile game company maybe in history. -
I'd buy the shit out of Super Mario Galaxy games on Steam. Just sayin'. Maybe even some Metroid Prime games.
Nintendo hasn't made a single Japanese yen on me since the SNES. Actually, I only played friends' SNES consoles, and didn't own one myself so make that the NES, I guess. -
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