By Grant Shepherd

SYDNEY: Nintendo has just released its financial results for the quarter ending 30 June 2009, although the company remained profitable across the board it has seen a 61.1 per cent drop in its operating income.

Over the past year Nintendo has fared very well in a category that seems to have shrugged off most of the effects of the global financial crisis, but it seems the economy has finally caught up with Nintendo.

According to the financial report, Nintendo’s first quarter sales were 253.4 billion yen (40.1 per cent down from the previous quarter), operating income was 40.4 billion yen (66.1 per cent lower than last June quarter 2008), ordinary income was 64.8 billion yen (63.4 per cent down from June quarter 2008), and net income was 42.3 billion yen (60.6 per cent down from June 2008).

In terms of geographic results, sales in Japan were 305.4 billion yen including inter-segment sales of 272.3 billion yen and operating income was 72.2 billion.

Sales in the America’s were 103.6 billion yen including inter-segment sales of 0.5 billion and operating income of 0.4 billion yen.

Europe saw 90.6 billion yen sales and 1 million yen inter-segment sales. Operating losses were 0.5 billion.

Other areas sales were 26.7 billion yen, inter-segment sales of 68 million and operating income was 2 billion yen.

In terms of products, the Nintendo DS sold 5.97 million units during the quarter and 107.75 million units life-to-date. In terms of software the DS sold 29.09 million units in the first three months of the fiscal year.

The ever-popular Wii console saw unit sales of 2.23 million units in the first quarter and 52.62 million units life-to-date. Software sales were 31.07 million units for the period.

Although the result is quite a drop from last year Nintendo attribute the loss to the fact that there have been fewer blockbuster software title releases than last year, therefore there were less motivators to drive hardware sales.

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