Nintendo seeing red

Nintendo has today announced that it will post its first loss since going public in 1962 for the six months to September. Having previously predicted profits of some 15 billion yen ($135 million) for the fiscal first half, Nintendo now expects to post a loss of around 3 billion yen ($27 million).

Nintendo attributes the losses not only to the poor sales performance of its GameCube console, but also to foreign exchange losses of some 40 billion yen ($360 million). Nintendo now hopes that the recently announced price cuts for the GameCube in Japan, North America, and Europe will see global demand for the console improve and is sticking to its sales target of 6 million consoles and 50 million games for the 12 months to March 2004.

Intriguingly, Nintendo has also blamed its own delay in announcing the GameCube price reductions, which, according to today's press release, were originally scheduled to come into effect earlier in the year. Despite today's announcement, Nintendo still expects to post a net profit of 60 billion yen ($540 million) for the year ending March 2004.