Japan's Nintendo shares plunge more than 6


(MENAFN- AFP) Shares in Nintendo fell more than six percent on Thursday after the Japanese videogame giant announced it was still mired in the red.

Nintendo closed down 6.49 percent at 11,525.0 yen on the Tokyo exchange.

The company said late Wednesday that it suffered a $97 million quarterly net loss, with higher costs tied to sales of its Wii U console digging into its bottom line while sales weakened.

The shortfall comes after the maker of the Super Mario and Pokemon franchises logged its third straight year of operating losses, underscoring the challenges faced by the one-time industry titan.

Nintendo has fallen on hard times in recent years, piling up losses as rivals Sony and Microsoft outpaced it in console sales.

All three companies are also fighting off a trend toward cheap - or sometimes free - downloadable games for smartphones and other mobile devices.

"A recovery isn't in sight," Mitsushige Akino, chief fund manager at Ichiyoshi Investment Management, told Dow Jones Newswires in reference to Nintendo's dwindling fortunes.

The Kyoto-based firm left unchanged its forecast for a 20 billion yen ($195 million) net profit on sales of 590 billion yen for the year to March 2015.


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