Nintendo reports operating loss of 10.3 billion yen, 3DS sales double compared to year earlier

Nintendo reports an operating loss of 10.3 billion yen - roughly $132 million - during the first quarter ending June 30th of this year, it was revealed in its first quarter earnings report released today.

Comparatively, the company saw a loss of 37.7 billion yen one year earlier. This quarter's result comes despite a decrease in both selling and general and administrative expenses compared to the first quarter of the last fiscal year.

Nintendo adds due to exchange losses of 21.1 billion yen, ordinary loss was 29.7 billion yen and net loss was 17.2 billion yen.

The company highlighted its Nintendo 3DS sales more than doubled during this quarter in comparison to last year, with 1.86 million units sold compared to the earlier 710,000. However, while the profitability is on the rise, the 3DS hardware is still in the negative margin.

In addition, Wii sales dropped from last year's 1.56 million units sold to 710,000, while DS sales were down from 1.44 million in the same period earlier to 540,000 in the first quarter of this year.

During the same first quarter earnings report, the company also reiterated its plans to focus on digital downloads in order to improve the sales of the Nintendo 3DS.

Last year Nintendo announced it would make the 3DS handheld once again profitable, with plans to stop selling the system at below cost by the middle of the fiscal year ending March 31st, 2013. Today it was announced in a statement by Nintendo spokesman Yasuhiro Minagawa, as reported by Bloomberg, the 3DS will be profitable starting this month. It is unknown, however, whether this statement includes the release of the 3DS XL due to launch at the end of July.