Nintendo Quarterly Profits Fall 46%

Q3 hasn’t been kind to Nintendo. The company saw a 46% decline in quarterly profits. The news comes just as Nintendo’s readying the launch of its new 3D-gaming system, 3DS, which may explain the large drop in sales of the original DS.

Sony is on the verge of releasing a rival portable gaming device, codenamed NGP, and both Microsoft and Sony recently unveiled motion controls, which were the major impetus for consumers purchasing Nintendo’s Wii home console.

Due to the competition, Nintendo has scaled back expectations regarding unit sales, forecasting 16 million Wii units from 17.5 and 22.5 million DS systems from 23.5 million.

A large indication of Nintendo’s struggles come in the form of operating profits. A year ago, its operating profit was 192.3 billion yen; this year, it’s 104.6 billion. Nintendo forecasts its operating cost to be 210 billion yen, roughly $145 billion yen less than last year.

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