Nintendo is limping along. The Japanese group, one seller of video game consoles in the world, published Thursday, May 6, the annual performance in very sharply. In fiscal year 2009-2010 (ending March 31), its sales fell 22% to 1.43 billion yen (10.9 billion euros), and net income of 18 1%. This is the first time in six years that its profits sag.

The Kyoto group, very exporter, has certainly suffered from the strengthening of the yen against the dollar and the euro. But the cons-performance is due mainly to falling sales of its home console, the Wii and its handheld console, the DS and the group’s decision to lower the selling price of the Wii.

Between April 2009 and March 2010, Nintendo has sold 20.53 million Wii in the world, against nearly 26 million a year earlier. Launched in early 2006 along with its competitors, the Sony PS3 and Xbox 360 from the U.S. Microsoft, this machine has so far experienced a huge success. Due to an innovative interface, a motion sensor built into the joystick (the Wiimote) can play a much more intuitive than the Classic Controller, full of buttons.

Nintendo has been able to take his revenge. In the previous generation of consoles, one in the early 2000s, its console, the GameCube, was far behind the PS2, Sony, (140 million units sold, according to estimates). “Today, sales of Wii settle down, because it reaches the end of life cycle. It’s a little logic,” Lawrence J. Michaud, a consultant of research firm IDATE.

The DS, which has already gone to almost 129 million copies since its launch, suffers it, piracy. Through the R4 cartridges, small storage cards that, once introduced into a PC, allow you to download pirated games for the DS on the Internet, then to “unload” on the console itself. Few figures in circulation. A big publisher says, however, that some of his games, he made 25% of turnover less. According to the website of the Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun (Asahi.com), type R4 cards are largely responsible for “nearly 50% drop in sales in Europe on Nintendo DS. “Piracy has an undeniable impact, but the phenomenon is not new and our sales of games for the machine remains strong,” defends Stephen Bole, CEO of Nintendo France. The group has launched numerous lawsuits against these practices.

Microsoft and Sony are also entered the stage of “late cycle” of their respective consoles. The XBox 360 first, well behind in terms of cumulative sales since its launch, is struggling to catch up despite his successive price reductions. “The PS3 has a good year in 2009, but also because of lower prices,” says Michaud.

The three heavyweights of the industry are still as long as possible sales of their machines, which cost them hundreds of millions of euros to develop. They are betting on it for 3D. The PS3 is now able to host games in relief. The Wii could also be offered in HD (high definition), the DS also. Experts expect the ads in this direction at E3, the main event of the sector which takes place in mid-June in Los Angeles.

Other innovations expected: new interfaces between the player and the console. To compete with the Wiimote, Microsoft will launch this year’s draft Natal. This system of movement recognition allows cameras in – the American promise – a game without any handle. Sony is also expected to formally present its motion-sensing controller, motion control them.

According to rumors, Nintendo would work his side to a DS with an accelerometer (motion detectors, to play a racing game by grabbing the console as a flywheel) to compete with the iPhone and iPad Apple, which are equipped.