Nintendo Takes $530 Million Loss

By Matt Mann / April 26, 2012

It has been a rough last year for Nintendo, even though the 3DS is selling very well right now they are still losing a ton of money. Part of the reason for that is the fact they literally just abandoned the Nintendo Wii for almost a year now. Nintendo for the first time ever posted a fiscal loss of $530 million for the fiscal year of 2011 (April 2011 through March 2012).

Nintendo released an official statement about the losses:

"While did post a loss for the recently completed fiscal year, the continuing momentum of the Nintendo 3DS and the global introduction of the highly-anticipated Wii U home console will drive the company back into profitability in the current year."

In addition, Nintendo is predicting a net profit of $245 million for the next fiscal year. One of the reasons for the hopefulness is that by August, Nintendo claims that the 3DS will no longer be sold below cost. I love Nintendo but I have to say everything is riding on the Wii U, the future of the company depends on the Wii U succeeding. If the Wii U fails we may never see another Nintendo home console again which to me would be unthinkable. As consumers we need that diversity that multiple consoles offer (which is why I hate the console wars); if we have only two consoles to choose from as consumers we will suffer. For example, all that talk of banning used games is being done by Microsoft and PlayStation, however if the Wii U allows used games both the other next generation Microsoft and PlayStation game consoles will get trounced. We need diversity to keep pushing video game consoles forward and unfortunately if the Nintendo Wii U doesn't sell I could defiantly see Nintendo becoming the next Sega.