games
A shortage of components is causing problems for Nintendo
Visitors to Gamescom walk past the Nintendo logo. photo
© Christophe Gateau/dpa
Thanks to exchange rate gains, the Japanese game manufacturer earns well. But missing components are slowing down sales. However, video games are no longer as popular as they were at the beginning of the pandemic.
Nintendo has been held back by shortages of chips and other components in the past quarter. Sales of the Switch games console fell 23 percent year-on-year to 3.43 million devices. This also had an impact on revenues, although the decline was partially cushioned by the weak yen. Sales fell in the first quarter of business, which ended in June, by 4.7 percent to just under 307.5 billion yen (around 2.27 billion euros), as the Japanese video games specialist announced on Wednesday.
The bottom line is that Nintendo earned significantly more than in the previous year thanks to exchange rate gains. The favorable rate added 51.7 billion yen to the balance sheet when converting overseas profits into Japanese currency. Consolidated profit rose year-on-year by 28.3 percent to almost 119 billion yen (a good 877 million euros).
After the boom at the beginning of the corona pandemic, a general slowdown in business in the video games industry was also noticeable recently. For the past quarter, competitor Sony reported declines in its Playstation business, and major game providers also struggled with headwinds.
Nintendo on business last quarter