Hit games Splatoon 3 and the new Pokemon titles helped Nintendo Co beat its annual net profit forecast yesterday, but the company predicted tougher times ahead as its Switch console ages.
The weak yen also inflated earnings for the Japanese gaming giant, which has recently had huge success at the box office with The Super Mario Bros Movie, this year’s first film to pass the global US$1 billion mark.
Nintendo posted a ￥432.7 billion (US$3.2 billion) net profit for the year to March, beating its forecast of ￥370 billion, but dipping 9.4 percent year-on-year as the chip shortage drove down Switch production.
Photo: AFP
Christmas sales were also weaker than usual, it said.
Robust software sales were a positive factor, with 35 game titles selling more than 1 million copies during the year.
However, the company forecast a drop in net profit for this financial year to ￥340 billion as it seeks to extend the profitability of the Switch, now in its seventh year.
“By continuing to convey the appeal of Nintendo Switch, we try to not only put one system in every home, but several in every home, or even one for every person,” Nintendo said in a statement.
“Another objective is to continually release new offerings so more consumers keep playing Nintendo Switch even longer and we can maximize hardware sales,” it said.
The firm sold nearly 18 million Switch consoles in the financial year ending March — down 22 percent year-on-year, but meeting its forecast, which was lowered from an original target of 21 million as the chip crunch hampered production.
In the financial year ending March 2021, Nintendo’s net profit soared to a record of ￥480 billion, thanks to booming demand for indoor entertainment during COVID-19 lockdowns and the runaway success of the game Animal Crossing.
The firm nearly matched that figure in the financial year ending March last year, but sales of the Switch, which was launched in 2017, and the console’s Lite and OLED variations, are slowing.
The company is to release the latest installment in its long-running Legend of Zelda game series, titled Tears of the Kingdom for the Switch on Friday.
Serkan Toto from Tokyo-based industry consultancy Kantan Games said the new Zelda game would “definitely” be the biggest contributor to Nintendo’s sales this financial year, even though there could be other surprise releases in the pipeline.
Semiconductor business between Taiwan and the US is a “win-win” model for both sides given the high level of complementarity, the government said yesterday responding to tariff threats from US President Donald Trump. Home to the world’s largest contract chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), Taiwan is a key link in the global technology supply chain for companies such as Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp. Trump said on Monday he plans to impose tariffs on imported chips, pharmaceuticals and steel in an effort to get the producers to make them in the US. “Taiwan and the US semiconductor and other technology industries
A start-up in Mexico is trying to help get a handle on one coastal city’s plastic waste problem by converting it into gasoline, diesel and other fuels. With less than 10 percent of the world’s plastics being recycled, Petgas’ idea is that rather than letting discarded plastic become waste, it can become productive again as fuel. Petgas developed a machine in the port city of Boca del Rio that uses pyrolysis, a thermodynamic process that heats plastics in the absence of oxygen, breaking it down to produce gasoline, diesel, kerosene, paraffin and coke. Petgas chief technology officer Carlos Parraguirre Diaz said that in
CHIP WAR: Tariffs on Taiwanese chips would prompt companies to move their factories, but not necessarily to the US, unleashing a ‘global cross-sector tariff war’ US President Donald Trump would “shoot himself in the foot” if he follows through on his recent pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese and other foreign semiconductors entering the US, analysts said. Trump’s plans to raise tariffs on chips manufactured in Taiwan to as high as 100 percent would backfire, macroeconomist Henry Wu (吳嘉隆) said. He would “shoot himself in the foot,” Wu said on Saturday, as such economic measures would lead Taiwanese chip suppliers to pass on additional costs to their US clients and consumers, and ultimately cause another wave of inflation. Trump has claimed that Taiwan took up to
SUBSIDIES: The nominee for commerce secretary indicated the Trump administration wants to put its stamp on the plan, but not unravel it entirely US President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the agency in charge of a US$52 billion semiconductor subsidy program declined to give it unqualified support, raising questions about the disbursement of funds to companies like Intel Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電). “I can’t say that I can honor something I haven’t read,” Howard Lutnick, Trump’s nominee for commerce secretary, said of the binding CHIPS and Science Act awards in a confirmation hearing on Wednesday. “To the extent monies have been disbursed, I would commit to rigorously enforcing documents that have been signed by those companies to make sure we get
RSS