Today, Nintendo said it expects to lose money for the first time ever.

The inventor of everything from Super Mario Brothers to Wii Fit is blaming the loss on lagging hardware and software sales.

Apparently a strong Japanese yen is also to blame, because it makes Nintendo products more expensive to buy outside of Japan.

In today’s Mid-day Extra, we ask: what happened to Nintendo?

For some answers we went to Jeff Ryan, author of the book “Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America.”

He says a big part of the problem is that people who play with Nintendo systems are usually the more casual video game users — and these days, they have a lot more ways to get their gaming fix on the go.