Not too entirely surprising with overall spending down last year because of all the junk that happened at the end of the year. And the SARS epidemic going on the Asia another hit is in the cards. I don't even Sony or Microsoft had gains this year for their console divisions. (Then again I could be wrong.)

America's economic down turn anyone?

It wasn't just the US. The entire world market went into a slump because of the war and other things. Fotunetly Greenspan said yesterday that a quick recovery this year for the US is possible. As for the world market it will still be in slumps because of SARS. Nintendo is a multinational corporation so you have to look at the whole picture not just the US.

(*As for the Greenspan thing I had nothing else to do waiting for work so I accually watched a little TV Greenspan had a meeting with the commitee of Finance (I believe).)

what do u guys think this will mean in the long run??? i mean shouldnt the cube be in fulll stride right now??? and shouldnt it be turning hte highest profits??? all i can say is that i hope that nintendos next console does a little better then the cube. i still amazes me that the cube has the bad rap it does....i think that this year cant be that bad for nintendo with the release of some huge titles, the gba player, and the gbasp. THEY JUST NEED TO MOVE SOME CUBES!!!!

There is nothing a company can do to turn a downturn in any economy, just weather it. They could try to ship more consoles at a higher cost to themselves and risk saturating the market effectively stalling their (Nintendo's shipping) sales, because that is were the consoles makers get their money when they sell them to the retailer or middle man no other cash is exchanged hands unless Nintendo is running a promotion then the retailer or middle man gets some of their money back.

The economic downturn didn't help, and Nintendo has lost that "coolness" factor with the casual gamers. It'll take a while to get both back. What they really need to do is concentrate on getting ready for the Sony Handheld and come out with a killer next-gen console. They'll be alright though...plenty of money in the bank.

silks

GC seems a lost cause (in terms of the public's perception of it and getting them to buy it), but at least it seems Nintendo knows this. Like it says, Nintendo needs to keep current owners happy and just prepare for "GC2".

It does seem Nintendo is already moving it's focus to "GC2". 3rd parties cancelling games left and right. Announcing "GC2" at E3. Focusing on GC-GBA to see how the publci reacts in order to see how they might incorporate it into "GC2". Moving Mario 128 (and a few other games that disappeared) over to "GC2" to help ensure it has a great selection right out of the gate... or so my theory goes.

Nintendo is in no major trouble yet. But they can't go on forever missing sale projections by 37-44% and expect to stay profitable. They are definitely in need of an image makeover. Things have changed. Now they need to keep that up and make sure everyone knows about it.

someone always has to say it, so it might as well be me...

even though sales are down, nintendo is still posting a net gain of $562 million. that's still pretty darn good, especially compared to the competition. most companies i know can't make $562 million dollars and then be pissed off because they didn't make more.

This article is worded a little poorly:

"Nintendo's goal of 10 million GameCube systems sold through its fiscal year ending in March wasn't met, as today it was announced that 9.55 million systems have been shipped out."

It makes it sound like 9.55 million have been shipped as of today, but in reality the press release says "As of March 31, 9.55 million GameCube machines have been sold around the world"

Perhaps the author of this article should fix that to avoid further confusion.

And missing their sales target by 450,000 units while making over $500 mil in profit isn't really all that bad, but let's hope they pick things up a little bit or they'll be in third place worldwide in no time.

I think Nintendo's main problem was that it just wasn't competetive enough.
It should have done something to match the XBox's bundle deals in the US and Europe DURING THE HOLIDAY SEASON. But it didn't do anything. It could have beaten the XBox in both markets if it had.

But maybe Nintendo was right. I'm no business expert. Maybe it was more important for Nintendo to be as profitable as possible over the holiday season and not give away free games despite the consequences. All I know is despite how so many people seem to think Nintendo is a company run by idiots, it's still one of the most consistantly profitable companies in the world and one of few game companies making a profit at all at the moment. So I'm just going to assume Nintendo is smarter than any of us and it knows what it's doing.

Pretty much all the bases have been covered from you people. My 2 cents is this:

The rules have changed. PS1 launched their 1st strike in '95, and Nintendo was cocky enough to release N64 a year later (Even delaying it from April to September). Sega also had some console, named after some planet, Saturn was it?

Fast foward to 2000. PS2 launches their 2nd strike, despite one of the weakest launches in Video Game history. but hey, when you're first you can get away with it. Nintendo overestimated its prowess, saying "Hey lets wait till 01."

2001, Software giant Microsoft enters the foray and by some miricle/coincidence brought in the launch title that people still talk about: Halo. What did nintendo have up their sleeve? A purple box and Luigi with a Vacum cleaner (Nintendo played it smart by also releasing Jet Black.) And before I get speared, Nintendo unveiled the new Zelda in the form of a cartoon. Simple rule of Psychology, 1st impressions are important and very hard to erase. I know a good deal of people (myself included) who pretty much went "What in the..." when the 1st screens of Zelda were shown. Granted, as time grew on, Surprise and anger gave way to patience and understanding to those who love Nintendo, not those who probably to this day say Zelda is kiddie and when this game starts getting awards, will be scratching their heads. Also at 01, PS2 had their two home run hitters, namely GTA 3 and FFX. Casual gamers scratched their heads at Pikmin, and Luigi's Vacum was no match Yuna's Summons and Halo's verstility.

Holiday season 2002, by some fluke Splinter Cell was able to topple Metroid Prime, despite being a more verstile game. and GTA Vice city's nickname should be "Sponge" because it sucked up sales in its opening weekend.

What will happen next? Nintendo won't be so cocky this time around, and will play to win. No more year behind launch dates, definately get a good launch game.

The future of Game Boy? Nothing to worry about N-Gage, it may be able to run Tomb raider, but I'd just as soon buy an Xbox and a slew of games (I might anyway, 179 looks feasible.) and have more fun. PlayStationPortable? Be afraid. When a company like Take Two (they made around 77 Million Dollars 2002) says they won't make games for GBA because it won't reach their "audience" and decide to make games for PSP, Nintendo will be in a world of hurt. They're safe now, but they're gonna have to be aggressive; GBA is the last haven of classic gaming.

That's my 2 cents, some of these figures were brought to by CNN/Money's website.

Remember... their goal was to reach ten million FOR THE FISCAL year, not 10 million total. the GC has a userbase somwhere between 12-15 million people, if you include sales from the the fiscal year in which the GC was first released and sales since March 31st. Besides, name another company with ten billion dollars in the bank as backup money for use in one industry.

ok that's just so wrong, Nintendo does not have a user base of 12-15 million of the Cube or 10 billion in the bank. they only have 4.5 billion in us dollars in the bank and there user base is somewhere closer to 9 million. they have shipped to retail approximately 9.55 systems not sold to consumers. Nintendo or any other company doesn't include the lesser sold to consumer numbers in their fiscal year reports, they include where they made their money from which is the shipped to retail numbers. they shipped and mostly sold 3.3 or 3.9 million systems in the last fiscal year, but only sold 5.6 million this fiscal year (from march 2002-2003), hence the total amount of gamecube systems shipped to retail are 9.55 million, with actual sales at most 9 million probably slightly less. their goal for just this past fiscal year was to ship 10 million Gamecubes, not total but just for this past fiscal year. obviously they missed their target by a large amount. if everything went according to Nintendo's original plans they would have at least 13-16 million total cubes sold by now, but they don't. those were there inital projections that they have to revise down. you can check all these numbers against their 2003 fiscal year report which is on nintendo.com

There is nothing wrong with lower proftis, just as long as there are profits. However, things are different this time. The emphasis has always been on how well Nintendo has done compared to Sony and Microsoft since the new generation of consoles has come into being. Unfortunately now, with lower profit reports, the emphasis may be shifted to how well Nintendo is doing compared to itself, which, by most rights is what it should have been to begin with. This may very well lead to big promlems when investors see a decline in profits, it will trigger what is known as the snowball effect. They will start selling their shares of Nintendo stock, which in turn, lowers Nintendo's worth, which in turn causes more investors to sell their stock, and so on.

I just hope Nintendo finds a way to turn more people on to the cube rather than targeting a specific genre. The gaming industry is supposed to be the one shining light in this economic recession, but hopefully the reason profits have slumped for nintendo is because of the recession, and not an evaporating market base.

actually trevor nintendo has over $7 billion in the bank hehehe....(il try to find the site that said afew months ago.)

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Originally posted by: )Dark-LInk(
actually trevor nintendo has over $7 billion in the bank hehehe....(il try to find the site that said afew months ago.)

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