Nintendo losses expected to top $1 billion

Nintendo's last quarterly financial report was grim, with the company announcing slumping sales, cutting its full-year profit projection and slashing the price of the 3DS globally by about one-third, less than six months after the handheld launched. The Mario maker is set to release its latest quarterly results Thursday, and if a report out of Japan is accurate, the numbers are going to be worse than expected.

According to The Nikkei Business Daily (via Reuters), Nintendo is expected to post first-half results showing a loss of ¥100 billion ($1.31 billion), nearly double the ¥55 billion ($722 million) loss the company had forecast for investors. Nintendo posted a loss of ¥25.5 billion ($334 million) for the first quarter of its current fiscal year.

The Nikkei report pegged blame for the supposed shortfalls on foreign exchange losses due to a strong yen. In the wake of the news, Nintendo shares dropped more than 7 percent.

Beyond validating or contradicting the Nikkei report, Nintendo's quarterly earnings should also provide perspective on the effectiveness of the 3DS price cut. The cut was announced along with the company's last quarterly numbers, which showed 710,000 3DS systems sold worldwide between April and June. That brought the total installed base for the glasses-free 3D handheld to 4.32 million. Nintendo has already touted some improvement in 3DS sales, saying in September that the device's sales in the US more than tripled in the weeks following the price cut.