NINTENDO LOSES MONEY FOR FIRST TIME IN SEVEN YEARS

Due to poor sales of its flagship products, the DS and the Wii, Nintendo has post a loss for the first half of the year.  This is the first loss in over seven years for Nintendo.  The DS slid from 11.7 million units last year to 6.69 million this year.  This is to be expected since the DS has been around for almost six years and the 3DS will be launching soon.

What is unexpected is that Wii sales have fallen off as well.  Last year 5.75 million Wii's were sold compared to 4.97 million this year.  This could be explained by the increased interest of the Microsoft Kinect and Sony Move for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 respectively.

Also contributing to the loss is the big slip in the value of the Yen.  Combining all these factors mean Nintendo's net income was down 33.7% over the same time last year and operating income was down 48% for the same period. [Gizmodo] [Kotaku]