Bloomberg Gives Gloomy Nintendo Forecast Prior to Mystery Announcement Tonight

It’s no secret that the Nintendo 3DS has, so far, tanked pretty hard. Everyone knows why: shitty or non-existent games. The most exciting titles so far have been remade N64 games, which really wasn’t quite enough to move enough systems to meet Nintendo’s forecasts.

Well, today, Bloomberg reported that, even with last month’s major price cut of the 3DS, Nintendo will likely not meet their goal of 16 million units by the end of the year. The four analysts that Bloomberg polled for the article predict that the company may hit sales as low as 10 million. And this is all after Nintendo revised their predicted earnings for the year right before the price cut. So, like, ouch, you know?

The analysts say that the main problem is, of course, the lack of killer games released for the system. The article notes that Super Mario 3DLand and the 3DS version of Mario Kart are hitting later this year, but that these are the titles that likely would’ve bolstered the system’s sales in the first place. Duh.

Anyhow, this all dovetails nicely into a reminder that Nintendo will be live-streaming their big, pre-Tokyo Game Show announcement this evening right at this link at 11 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (which will be bright and early in the morning on September 13 for them Japanese folks).

Everyone already knows about the crappy looking second-analog stick that’s coming, so it’s very, very unlikely that it’ll be the sole subject of this meeting. Rumors have suggested that Nintendo will be announcing a new iteration of the 3DS, with less emphasis on the 3D (to allay the fears of scrambling kids’ eyes), and perhaps one with the second stick already built in. This meeting is supposed to buoy the hope of investors and shareholders, so it’s probably something on the big side.

What do you think? New version of the 3DS? Some game release dates? A super-secret killer app that will make everyone run out and buy a system? The announcement that Nintendo will start making games for other mobile devices? Your guess is as good as mine (possibly better), but I think it’s safe to say that no matter what the speculation, it will probably be disappointing. Just the pessimist in me.

Make sure to check the Ustream channel for the conference tonight—and try to jump around the internet for someplace that’ll translate it all into English. I’m crossing my fingers that the folks in the chat-box on the right of the screen will do that for me…

Via Bloomberg