At the end of last week Nintendo warned that their predicted profit for this financial year was much more likely to be a loss, at the same time as slashing their predictions for Wii U sales in the same period.
In the wake of that announcement the company's shares are said to have dropped as much as 18%, with the BBC reporting that shares fell as low as 11,935 Yen on the Tokyo Stock Exchange today.
It's looking bleak for the once dominant platform holder, but analysts are suggesting that one potential route out of their current predicament would be for Nintendo to embrace new platforms: "Its console-based business model spells doom for stakeholders," analysts at Jefferies wrote in a note (via the BBC). "It has no choice but to accept the change. We believe Mario on mobile is coming."
"We are thinking about a new business structure," Iwata stated in defence of his company's position (via Bloomberg). "Given the expansion of smart devices, we are naturally studying how smart devices can be used to grow the game-player business. It's not as simple as enabling Mario to move on a smartphone."