Nintendo quarterly earnings down; 3DS launch date to be announced Sept. 29

Nintendo has announced it financial earnings for the second quarter in its Fiscal 2011, running from April 1, 2010 through June 30, 2010. Net sales, operating income and net income all saw declines compared to the same time last year. Net sales were down to 188 billion yen ($2.16 billion) from 253 billion yen ($2.9 billion), while operating income and net income saw less dramatic shifts, down to 23 billion yen ($264 million) and 25 billion yen ($287 million) from 40 billion yen ($460 million) and 42 billion yen ($483 million) last year, respectively. Nintendo attributes these losses to the appreciation of the yen and a lower DS price point.

3.15 million DS units and 22.42 million units of DS software were sold worldwide during this quarter. On the Wii side, Super Mario Galaxy 2 managed to be the big performer, selling 4.09 million units worldwide since its launch in late May. 3.04 million Wii consoles were sold, backed by 28.17 million units of Wii software worldwide. As far as forecasted earnings go, Nintendo anticipates net sales of 550 billion yen ($6.3 billion) by the end of September 2010 and 1.4 trillion yen ($16 billion) by the end of its Fiscal 2011, March 2011.

It'll be interesting to see how those earnings are affected by Nintendo's upcoming 3DS hardware launch. The company has revealed (via Bloomberg) that it'll finally announce the launch date and price for its latest piece of tech in Japan on September 29.