10/30/2009 - Nintendo (OTC:NTDOY) said Friday that it was caught off guard by the slowing sales of its Wii gaming platform, and may need some time for momentum to return. A long dry spell for hit games has weighed on the company's sales, and forced it to lower forecasts for Wii hardware by 23% to 20 million units for the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2010. The company lowered software estimates by 18% to 180 million units. "Once the temperature goes down, it takes a little while for things to heat up again," said president Satoru Iwata. "Right now, the mood is not one where people feel like they have to rush out to buy a Wii, so we need a little time for things to pick up." Wii is still the overall leader of the current generation of consoles, outselling Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) Xbox 360 and Sony's (NYSE:SNE) Playstation 3.

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