Nintendo currently has $4.7 billion in the bank

[Arkaign]

phaedruss said:

sethnintendo said:

phaedruss said:
That doesn't sound good. I know they hired a bunch of people and bought a bunch of shares, but damn 4-5 billion down from what a few years ago?

They also built a new R&D building.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/219660/New_Nintendo_development_center_opens_in_Kyoto.php

However, that only accounts for ~186 million dollars.  I believe they also spent ~150 million on an unknown acquisition perhaps relating to their quality of life platform they have been talking about.

http://nintendoeverything.com/nintendo-confirms-it-spent-150-million-on-new-tech-for-a-non-japanese-non-games-company/

Oh yea the builiding, but like you said that wasn't a ton all in all. Hopefully, whatever it is that they've invested in pays off soon. They could be looking at even more losses. That is of course assuming a lot of these losses were from investments.

What everyone misses is the massive reduction in liabilities, which is smart financial management. Think of it this way, to compare to a personal level : 

Nintendo is like a person who started a few years ago with $40k in Credit Card debt, $10k in cash, and $10k in other assets. Now in current year, they have $10k in Credit Card debt, $6k in cash, and $12k in assets (along with some major home improvements and maintenance out of the way).

The analogy isn't perfect, but reducing long-term liabilties makes it dramatically easier to be profitable even with the same income.