Cheaper Wii and fall in DS sales hit Nintendo

On offer: Nintendo matched price cuts by Sony and Microsoft to make the Wii cheaper

11 April 2012

Nintendo's profits have tumbled with a fall in sales of its DS handheld games player and as the firm cut the price of its Wii console.

Demand for the DS slowed as it entered its fifth year of production a year ago, and smartphones such as Apple's iPhone emerged as portable game machines.

Profitability also came under pressure because Nintendo cut the price of the Wii by a fifth in the second half of last year, responding to similar cuts by Sony and Microsoft on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

Nintendo said it sold 17.05 million Wii game consoles around the world, short of the 20.52 million which were snapped up by consumers in the same period last year.

It also sold 23.35 million DS handheld consoles, down from 25.62 million the previous year. Wii software sales fell four per cent to 156.6 million units.

For the year to March, Nintendo has not changed its forecast for operating profit to fall to 370 billion yen (£2.5 billion), down from 555.3 billion yen a year earlier.

Over the past year, Nintendo shares have lost 17 per cent, while Sony gained 68 per cent.