Nintendo does not meet expectations in third quarter

Higher costs

Better news came from its newest game, Super Mario Maker for Wii U, which sold very well at 1.9 million copies already. By the end of the year, Nintendo plans to release its first smartphone game, but it will not divulge any more information about that particular game until next Tuesday.

Nintendo’s profit dropped nearly 20 % to 3.2 billion yen (24 million euro) in the past quarter, compared to 11.5 billion yen in the first 6 months of the fiscal year. Higher costs were to blame for the profit drop as turnover grew 19 % to 204 billion yen (1.53 billion euro). Over the first six months of its fiscal year, Nintendo sold 1.2 million Wii U consoles and 2.3 million 3DS handhelds.

Nintendo’s full-year forecast is at 570 billion yen (4.3 billion euro) turnover, although much depends on how it performs during the all important holiday season.