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Nintendo revised their earnings expectations for the 2002 fiscal year today, the yearlong period ending March 31. The news was not at all good to investors: the company cut its profit expectations to 66 billion yen ($547 million), a 38 percent drop from the 80 billion yen ($663 million) they were expecting to make.
The chief cause of this profit drop was the same issue that's been plaguing Nintendo's Kyoto headquarters for the past year—GameCube console sales aren't making their grade. The company said that 5.6 million Cubes were sold in 2002, a far cry from their previous sales target of 10 million, and software sales fell about 10 million units below their 55-million-unit goal. Global affairs didn't help Nintendo, either: the company lost an estimated 23 billion yen stemming from the yen's high value against the dollar during 2002.
At a press conference in Osaka, Japan, Nintendo senior managing director Yoshihiro Mori was up front with his company's missteps. "Hardware and software sales for the GameCube, our main product, did not produce the numbers we had planned for," he said. "The Game Boy Advance, on the other hand, exceeded our expectations, but we are revising our figures now because overall sales fell below plan."
Mori made note of the success of the PlayStation 2, and the Grand Theft Auto series in particular, as the chief culprit of their problems. "GTA sold overwhelmingly across the world during this fiscal year," he commented. "I think the fact that Nintendo released new Mario and Metroid games that were both overshadowed by GTA was the primary factor" behind the earnings revision.
In response to the reduced earnings, Nintendo announced changes in its game development strategy, including the reconsideration of game difficulty and play time. One major side effect of this—the company will place even greater emphasis on games that use the GameCube-GBA link cable. According to Mori, several link-compatible games will be shown at the Electronic Entertainment Expo next month.
This earnings news comes hot on the heels of a Japanese report that Capcom will port Resident Evil to multiple platforms instead of keeping new, non-offshoot titles in the series exclusive to the GameCube. The report, which Capcom promptly denied, sent the publisher's stock up to 1208 yen on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, a rise of 20 percent since Friday.
> The trouble with Ninty fanboys is they all live in their own little
> world cocooned from the real world that everyone else lives in.
This coming from someone who likes to pretend he owns a Lexus and has a 19 year old girlfriend!!! Talk about irony.
> Who you taking to Hammy?
Top Spore
;-)
> Who you taking to Hammy?
And don't call me Hammy - it sounds a little, um, wrong.
;-)
> Still think it's a green Mini Metro
We still talking about cars?
;-)
PS2 haz taeken ova da wurld an you smel ov weee!!!!
I haev shears in Sonee and usd da divvy dendz to by a leckhsus and I haev a gf who is fit and i paye fro her by da huor!!!!!
Imagine how many "lexus"s and "19 year old girlfriend"s they could by with that!