Nintendo unveils new
console, shares slide as features underwhelm
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[October 21, 2016]
By Taiga Uranaka and Makiko Yamazaki
TOKYO
(Reuters) - Nintendo Co Ltd offered a sneak preview of a new gaming
system that can be used both as a traditional console as well as a
handheld device, but a lack of revolutionary features helped send its
shares sliding 6 percent.
In a 3-minute video teaser, the Kyoto-based games company unveiled
Nintendo Switch, its first new gaming device in four years, which will
launch in March 2017. It remained, however, silent on the key issue of
pricing.
Its success will be crucial as Nintendo still considers console gaming
to be the center of its business, even as casual gaming has moved to
smartphones and tablets and as it last console, the Wii U, flopped
badly.
If sales disappoint, the company will come under even more pressure to
embrace smartphone gaming - something it has only just begun to do.
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"The trailer does not show the device being played in interesting new
ways, gameplay looks to be surprisingly similar to gaming with any
number of other consoles," Takeshi Koyama, a senior analyst at Mizuho
Securities, wrote in a report to clients.
He added that many aspects of the new device remained unclear, such as
whether the screen on the main unit is a touch screen or whether it can
be synced up with other smart devices.
The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario, and Splatoon are among the games lined
up for the console, the trailer showed, while dozens of publishers such
as Activision Publishing Inc, Electronic Arts Inc and Take-Two
Interactive Software Inc are developing games for the device.
Eiji Maeda, an analyst at SMBC Nikko Securities, said the games should
go down well with traditional Nintendo fans but there were no games
shown that seemed to break new ground.
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![](../images/102116pics/busine37.jpg)
The Nintendo Switch, a new gaming device, is seen in this undated
image released by Nintendo October 21, 2016. Nintendo/Handout via
REUTERS
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Nintendo has sold only 13 million Wii U consoles since its launch in 2012,
compared with 101 million sales of its predecessor, the Wii, launched in 2006.
That flop helped push Nintendo into mobile gaming, leading to the runaway
success of Pokemon GO and plans to debut its game franchise Super Mario Bros on
Apple Inc's iPhone in December.
Shares in Nintendo were down 5.7 percent in afternoon trade on Friday, giving
the company a market value of about $35 billion. The stock is, however, still up
some 70 percent since early July on hopes that Pokemon GO and Super Mario Bros
on the iPhone will be big contributors to earnings.
(Reporting by Makiko Yamazaki and Taiga Uranaka in Tokyo; Additional reporting
by Aishwarya Venugopal in Bengaluru; Writing by Miyoung Kim; Editing by Edwina
Gibbs)
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