Annual falls for Nintendo

Nintendo has reported an 18 per cent decline in net income for the year ending March 31st 2010 at $2.45bn. Revenue was $1.53bn – a decline of 22 per cent.

It’s Nintendo’s first full-year annual decline in six years, but is also the third most profitable year in the company’s records. It also forecast another year-on-year decline for the fiscal year ending March 31st 2011.

The platform holder’s biggest declines stemmed from Europe, where sales fell 34 per cent year-on-year to $513m. By comparison, the US saw sales fall 19 per cent to $684m while Japanese sales fell four per cent $246m.

The main cause for the numbers, according to the firm, was cuts to the price of Wii hardware as well as a lack of triple-A software releases for the format.

Throughout the period the company sold in excess of 27.1m DS units and 20.5m Wii consoles – that’s a 21 per cent decline in sales of the home console.

Life-to-date sales for both machines stand at 129m and 71m respectively.

For fiscal 2011 Nintendo believes Wii sales will fall to 18m units, with software sales droppinh by 14 per cent. It reckons, however, that DS sales will grow 11 per cent.

The year ahead will first and foremost see the launch of Nintendo’s DS successor the 3DS as well as Super Mario Galaxy 2, Metroid: Other M and, of course, the still mysterious Vitality Sensor.