Nintendo stays in profit despite tough second quarter

Platform holder Nintendo has reported a 78.5 per cent drop in its operating profit for the June quarter, with the firm remaining in the black despite a major shortfall in sales of the Game Boy Advance and GameCube platforms.

The company reported operating income of 13.72 billion Yen (100.8 million Euro), down 3.75 billion Yen (27.5 million Euro) off last year's figure, on sales of 70.7 billion Yen (519 million Euro) - down 14 per cent over sales in the same quarter last year.

Shipments of the GBA were only 0.98 million during the quarter, down from 2.3 million in the same period last year, while the GameCube shipped just 260,000 units - a major drop, although much of it may have been caused by a well-stocked channel rather than severely reduced sales at retail.

Software sales on the Cube were also low, not least because the company released little in the way of headline software during the period - with most of its key Cube titles scheduled for the second half of the year.

However, the Nintendo DS balanced out the quarter to some extent. The new handheld continues to be a major success for the company, with nearly 1.4 million games sold for the console during the period, and the firm on track to sell 12.4 million hardware units in the current financial year.