Nintendo profit plunges as Wii demand sinks

BEIJING£¬Oct. 29 (Xinhuanet) -- Japan's Nintendo reported a 52 percent slide in quarterly profit on Thursday, forcing the Wii home console owner to forecast annual earnings would fall for the first time in six years, according to media reports.

Nintendo Thursday reported a 772 million U.S. dollar profit for the April-September period. That was down 52 percent from 1.60 billion dollars a year earlier, and trailed its own May forecast for a 1.1 billion dollar profit. Fiscal first-half sales dropped 34.5 percent to 6.1 billion dollars.

Demand for Nintendo's family-friendly games has cooled as rivals Sony Corp and Microsoft Corp bolster their catalog of games that appeal to die-hard players. Nintendo's portable game machine, the DS, also faces increasing competition from Apple Inc's iPhone, which has become a popular platform for handheld games.

Kyoto-based Nintendo lowered its forecast for the full fiscal year to a 2.54 billion dollar profit from 3.31 billion dollars ¡ª the first time in six years it predicted earnings would fall. Nintendo reaped a record 3.08 billion dollar profit for the fiscal year ending March.

Nintendo also lowered its sales forecast for the fiscal year through March 2010 to 16.7 billion dollars from 20 billion dollars, blaming the Wii price cut.

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata told a news conference a lack of new, must-have titles had hurt sales of the Wii in the April-September period.

(Agencies)