Despite their first six-month loss in seven years, Nintendo will not be panicked into discounting their console range before Christmas, according to their president’s comments during the company’s financial results briefing….

Both Nintendo games consoles suffered from a drop in year-on-year sales up until September 2010. The Nintendo DS suffered the worse by far; Nintendo shifted 11.7 million DS units in 2009, but only 6.69 million in 2010. The Nintendo Wii saw sales drop by 0.78 million to 4.97 million. Nintendo’s total loss for the period amounted to £15.6 million.

However, it seems that Nintendo aren’t panicking just yet. Asked about a possible price cut, company president Satoru Iwata said, “Of course, we cannot say it will never happen, but we are not thinking of it for the near future,” before stating that they will be concentrating on creating limited deals in conjunction with retailers – these will come in the form of bundles and special packages.

In truth, they are probably right not to worry. The release of the much anticipated 3DS in just several months explains why new DS buyers are short on numbers and the newly-designed model will add freshness to a comparatively old product – the six years it has been on the market represents a very long time in commercial technology terms.

The Nintendo Wii, which is also due an update, is likely to suffer more losses as the mainstream explores the different opportunities that will be provided by PlayStation Move and Kinect for the Xbox 360. However, Nintendo are countering by offering a limited edition red Wii, as part of the celebrations of company mascot Mario’s 25th birthday and still expect to achieve their aim of selling 17.5 million Wii consoles by the turn of the next financial year.

[Press Association via Yahoo!]

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