Nintendo profits slide

It’s clear the recession has finally caught up with Nintendo – despite being initially immune to the effects of the economic downturn, the firm has today confirmed a profit slump in its half-year financial report.

The firm said net profit fell over half year on year to YEN69.4bn in the six months to September 30th – down by around $770m. It reported profits of YEN144.83bn a year earlier.

Of course, it’s still making well over half a billion dollars every six months, but the slip was attributed to fewer software releases in turn sparking a slowdown in hardware sales.

5.75m Wiis were sold globally in the six month period – down from 10.1m a year previously.

"There were fewer software titles that briskly drove hardware sales thi ssix-month period versus the same period a year ago," the format holder said in a statement.

There was a similar story on DS.

11.7m DS units were sold in the six month period, taking the global installed base to 113.48m worldwide – however 13.7m were sold in the previous comparable period.

And "there were few noteworthy software titles released overseas," the firm said – worldwide sales of DS software were 71.15m in the first half of Nintendo’s fiscal year.

Nintendo has now lwered its forecast for net profit in the year ending March 2010 down to YEN230bn, from YEN300bn – a decrease of almost 18 per cent.

The firm said it expected to sell 20m Wiis this year, down from a projection of 26m.

Nintendo recently announced plans to release a Black Wii in Europe to attract more consumers – and this morning also unveiled a new version of the DSi handheld, which boasts even bigger screens.