Nintendo Stock Plunges After Wii U Announcement

When Nintendo announced the Wii U at their press conference yesterday, I must admit that I came away from the whole thing feeling a little more confused than I would have liked. Apparently I’m not alone in that feeling.

After the announcement, Nintendo stock in the Tokyo Stock Exchange plunged more than 5%, closing at 16,970 yen. To put that into perspective for you, that’s the lowest shares have been since before the launch of the Wii, according to Joystiq.

The plunge seems to indicate that perhaps Nintendo didn’t do as good a job as they would have hoped in communicating the potential of Wii U. It would appear that Nintendo is going after the tablet market, casual and hardcore gamers at the same time, but analysts aren’t convinced Nintendo will be able to pull it off.

To Nintendo’s credit, they haven’t let us down in the past few years. Wii’s motion control gimmick turned out to be an enormous success despite speculation to the contrary, and the Nintendo 3DS is enjoying success despite growing consumer apathy towards all things 3D. Regardless, this sends a pretty clear message that the pressure is on Nintendo to prove the Wii U’s concept to weary consumers.

Source: Forbes (via Joystiq)