Nintendo Shipped Almost 76 Million Wiis, 136 Million DSs Through September

Global cumulative Wii shipments grew to 75.98 million, while worldwide shipments of the DS handheld system reached 135.58 million as of Sept. 30, Nintendo said Thursday. Cumulative shipments of Wii software hit 610.04 million, while total DS software shipments grew to 773.34 million, it said. But it said shipments of both platforms were weaker in the first six months of its fiscal year, ended Sept. 30, than the same period of 2009, and it reported weaker results.

Nintendo shipped 4.97 million Wiis and 6.69 million DS systems globally in the first six months of its fiscal year ended Sept. 30. That was fewer than the 5.75 million Wiis and 11.7 million DS systems shipped in the same period of last year across all markets, it said. Of the 4.97 million Wiis shipped in the first half of the year, 2.51 million were in the Americas, 450,000 in Japan and 2.01 million other markets. Of the 6.69 million DSs, 2.53 million were in the Americas, 1.15 million Japan and 3.01 million other markets. Nintendo, as usual, didn’t give specific U.S. or European shipment data. But the U.S. makes up the bulk of its sales in the Americas, while Europe makes up most of its sales from markets outside the Americas and Japan.

Revenue for the first half of the year tumbled 33.7 percent to 363.16 billion yen from the same period last year due to the weaker DS and Wii sales, Nintendo said. It swung to a 2 billion yen loss from a 69.49 billion yen profit.

Software shipments also tumbled in the first six months, with Wii game sales falling to 65.21 million copies from 76.21 million a year ago and DS game sales dropping to 54.84 million from 71.15 million, Nintendo said.

But Nintendo reported “very strong” initial sales for the DS games Pokemon Black and Pokemon White in Japan. They shipped in September and sold a combined 4.07 million copies that month, Nintendo said. The games haven’t shipped in the U.S. or Europe yet. The company also sold 5.1 million copies of Super Mario Galaxy 2 for the Wii globally, it said.

The company didn’t change its earnings estimates from what it announced Sept. 29. At the time, Nintendo slashed its results and product shipment forecast for the year, saying it expected to report a profit of 90 billion yen, down from its earlier estimate of 200 billion yen, and revenue of 1.1 trillion yen, down from 1.4 trillion yen (CED Sept 30 p8). Nintendo expects to ship 23.5 million DS hardware units and 125 million DS software units, down from its prior forecast of 30 million hardware and 150 million software. That includes expected 3DS shipments of 4 million hardware units and 15 million software units. Nintendo now expects to ship 17.5 million Wii hardware units and 138 million Wii software units, down from 18 million hardware and 165 million software. The only change in its shipment forecast from September was a slight uptick in expected Wii software sales. It said Sept. 29 that it only expected to ship 135 million Wii software units.

Nintendo also said Sept. 29 that it wouldn’t ship the 3DS handheld system until Feb. 26 in Japan and March in North America. Some game industry analysts had expected the device, which achieves stereoscopic 3D effects without the need for special glasses, would arrive in time for this holiday season despite Nintendo saying all along only that the system would ship by the end of its fiscal year, March 31, 2011.