Nintendo has announced a 61 percent drop in quarterly operating profit for its most recent financial quarter.

The company has forecasted a loss of $580 million for the year end until March.

The loss has been attributed to a mixture between weak sales and a strong Yen.

The predicted operating loss will be the first full-year operating loss that the company has posted since it began announcing its earnings back in 1981. It has reduced its annual forcast for Wii sales from 12 million to 10 million devices, and its 3DS sales projections have been reduced from 16 million to 14 million.

“We had higher expectations for the year-end season, but failed to meet them,” President Satoru Iwata told reporters in Osaka.

As a result of poor sales Nintendo last year was forced to slash the retail price of the highly anticipated Nintendo 3DS console, just 6 months after it was released.

Since the beginning of the financial year in April last year, Nintendo shares have halved to below 11,000 Yen. At its peak in late 2007, Nintendo’s shares were worth 73,200 Yen. Now sitting at 10,020 yen, Nintendo’s shares are the lowest they’ve been since April 2004, before the Wii and DS were launched.

Source: MyBroadband