Aside from confirming that it’s working on a handful of games for smartphones and tablets, Nintendo has remained annoyingly silent regarding its long-awaited entrance into the mobile market, but it’s finally going to break that silence tomorrow. CEO Tatsumi Kimishima announced earlier today that the company will go into detail regarding its first mobile game tomorrow, and announcement which comes shortly after the company reported its first operating profit for the first half of the year in five years.
Nintendo Co. is set to unveil its first videogame for smartphones on Thursday, a day after weaker-than-expected financial results underscored the company’s need to develop new business to support its struggling console operations. “We will talk about details tomorrow,” Nintendo’s new chief executive, Tatsumi Kimishima, said Wednesday. For the first time in five years, Nintendo reported an operating profit for the first half of its fiscal year, as hit game titles helped sales of its game machines. But the earnings fell short of analyst forecasts, reflecting weakening momentum for the company’s Wii U console and 3DS hand-held devices, both of which have been on the market for several years. For the six months ended in September, Nintendo recorded an operating profit of ¥8.98 billion ($74.6 million), a turnaround from a loss of ¥215 million a year earlier. Analysts had expected an operating profit of ¥14.4 billion. Sales rose to ¥204.2 billion from ¥171.4 billion, but net income fell to ¥11.5 billion from ¥14.3 billion. Last year, Nintendo’s net profit was inflated by gains in the dollar.
