Aielyn said:
Major losses? Underperforming 3DS numbers? Where is this coming from? Here's Nintendo's net income for the last 6 years (displaying the year at the end of the financial year): 2009: 257 billion yen As you can see, their net income (which is where you determine "profit") is a loss... but a rather small one, less than 10% of the profit made in 2009 and about 10% of the profit made in 2010. Indeed, the net loss over the last three years is less than the profit made in the lacklustre 2011. And the 3DS numbers are only underperforming relative to Nintendo's highly optimistic predictions made at the start of the fiscal year; their total 3DS sales have remained almost steady from the previous year (they predicted 18 million, it was around 12 million, compared to 13-14 million in the previous two years). What's more, that -23 billion yen number from 2014? It's entirely due to things like R&D and advertising expenditures in Q4 - indeed, their Q4 net income was -33 billion yen, meaning that they were up 10 billion yen prior to that expenditure. So no, Iwata isn't about to lose his job. Indeed, the only legitimate gripe against Iwata is the "dismal" Wii U sales. And that's something that is likely to at least improve this year, given that two of the biggest franchises - Mario Kart and Smash Bros - are set for release, alongside a new Zelda title (Hyrule Warriors) and the retail version of Wii Sports Club. |
Nintendo's handheld sales are the lowest they've been since 1997/98 ... that was before the launch of the Game Boy Color and Pokemon in the US.
He can lose his job by the way, it's not a matter of what you think, it's a matter of how shareholders vote. He went from 95%+ approval rating a few years down to 77% last year (even with the small net profit) and will almost certainly get less than 77% this time around. If his approval ratings start to dip below 50% then the board may have no choice but to remove him.
I suspect though while Iwata is losing support and confidence of his shareholders, his approval rating won't dip that low just yet. I think he's set the table in telling shareholders to wait for QOL (ie: he's bought himself about two years). If that flops though ... then it could get ugly.
