Nintendo has cut its' profit forecasts for the financial year 2003/2004

The weak dollar and the strong yen have both forced a drop in the profits of Nintendo over the past twelve months. Strong sales of the Game Boy Advance and an installed worldwide userbase of 15 million Gamecubes could not prevent a 47% drop in year on year profits.

While this is certainly not the best news, its' worth mentioning that the Gamecube still has a userbase in excess of the Xbox and the company has still made a tidy pre-tax profit.

Pre-tax, Nintendo made about 50 billion yen -�280 million, which is almost half of the figure predicted by the japanese powerhouse a year ago. In response to this rather unpleasant news, Nintendo increased predicted figures for the next financial year to 110 billion yen.

Because of the 7.3% increase in the value of the yen since the predictions were made last year, the value of the companies' US assets when measured against the yen have plummeted seriously.

However, despite these falls in the net profit of the company, the other figures supporting the company appeared far healthier than last years'. Total sales 2003-2004 rose from �3 billion in 2002-2003 to �3.5 billion.

Although this shortfall has affected the share prices and investor confidence in the company, this last year has by no means bee a failure for Nintendo. After all, how many companies can claim a profit in the hundreds of millions after a tumultuous year in the currency markets where your assets are spread across three distinct markets but only measured by one central economy.