Nintendo issued a statement to inform investors that it may miss its sales and profit target for the 2003 fiscal year. The company said that profits for the year to March 31, 2004, are estimated to be 54 billion yen, down from the November 2003, 60 billion yen forecast.
Moreover, the company said it would fall a million short of its target of selling 6 million GameCubes by the end of March. Nintendo also slightly changed its estimate of Game Boy Advance sales from a previous 20 million target down to 18 million.
The warning comes after a 34 percent increase in Nintendo shares during the past three months. In November, Nintendo lowered the price of its GameCube console to $99 and packaged it with a free game The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition. This is nearly a $70 difference from competing consoles and as a result many were confident Nintendo would reach its target.
Nintendo's missed mark is blamed on weak demand for the GameCube and Game Boy Advance consoles. This despite Nintendo of America having issued a "Did You Know?" statement on January 22, 2004, claiming the Game Boy Advance was the "No. 1 Selling System" and the GameCube was the "No. 1 Fastest-Growing System" and had the "No. 1 Fastest-Growing Game Seller".
This announcement comes a few days after Sony said it was on track to sell 20 million PlayStation 2 consoles worldwide.
Nintendo spokesman Yasuhiro Minagawa said a weak dollar combined with slow sales in Japan and a supply shortage during the North American holiday-shopping period, have placed the full-year sales targets beyond reach.
Source: The Seattle Times