Nintendo Co Ltd posted a 61 percent drop in quarterly operating profit on Thursday and forecast a 45 billion yen ($580 million) operating loss for the full year to March 31, after poor sales forced it to slash the price of its 3DS handheld games device.

The company had previously forecast a 1 billion yen operating profit for 2011/12.

Profit fell to 40.9 billion yen for the traditionally strong October-December period, compared with a consensus estimate of a 52 billion yen profit, based on forecasts by three analysts on Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Nintendo was forced to slash the price of its new 3DS gadget by about a third in August after sales slumped following the February launch.

Shares in Nintendo have halved to less than 11,000 yen since the beginning of the financial year in April, hit by the 3DS flop and market disappointment with the Wii U home console, unveiled at the E3 games show in June. At their peak, in late 2007, the shares traded at 73,200 yen.

($1 = 77.58)

(Reporting by Isabel Reynolds in TOKYO; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Edwina Gibbs)

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