Remember the days of Nintendo printing money? Those days are over, apparently. According to Japan's Nikkei, the Kyoto-based game maker is poised to post huge losses tomorrow.
Profits are supposedly down a staggering ¥100 billion ($1.3 billion), which is twice what Nintendo forecast.
The two major culprits are struggling hardware sales and the stubbornly strong Japanese yen. Nintendo makes 80 percent of its profits from foreign sales, and lost a whopping ¥40 billion yen in foreign exchange. That's $526 million gone right there—poof.
Many Japanese companies have recently been complaining about the strong Japanese yen, threatening to move production abroad. Nintendo, who does not manufacture hardware in Japan, shows just how painful the strong yen is even for those companies who have already moved their manufacturing offshore.
Yet even with these huge losses, Nintendo still expects to turn a profit of ¥35 billion ($460 million), the lowest in the company's past 27 years and less than the company lost on the exchange rate.
Nintendo declined to comment on the Nikkei report, and the company will disclose how it's doing tomorrow.
UPDATE 1-Nintendo H1 recurring loss seen at Y100 bln [Reuters]
(Top photo: Chiaki Tsukumo | AP)
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