Pokemon no go: Nintendo suffers quarterly net loss of $234 million
With Pokemon Go profits going to Niantic and The Pokemon Company, Wii U sales falling and few big hits in sight, Nintendo has a case of the financial blues.
Pokemon Go is a bona fide hit, but Nintendo is still in the red. The Kyoto-based company on Wednesday released an earnings report for the first quarter of the financial year, revealing a net loss of 24.5 billion yen -- roughly $234 million.
Only 220,000 Wii Us were sold during the last three months, and Nintendo also attributed some of the loss with having to contend with exchange rate problems. It said that "foreign exchange rates [were] impacted by significant yen appreciation", which hurts the company's bottom line due to 72 percent of its sales being overseas.
Nintendo has been in the public eye perhaps more than ever in the past month due to the success of Pokemon Go. However, the company's stock prices plummeted this week after Nintendo last Friday reminded investors that it didn't actually make the iOS and Android game, Niantic did.
The company's next great hope is the NX, Nintendo's follow up to the Wii U. Not much is known about the NX, although rumour is it'll be a portable game system with its own screen, not a stationary console that plugs into a TV.
On the software front, Nintendo is placing its bets on 2017's The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for the Wii U and NX , as well as Pokemon Sun and Moon for the 3DS. It's also developing more games for mobile platforms -- utilising the Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem brands.