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Today Nintendo has confirmed that their new console, the Wii U, only managed to sell around 160,000 units over the last three months. These numbers break down further with the Wii U selling 90,000 units in Japan, 60,000 units in America, and 10,000 in Europe and Australia. Their software figures weren't much better either with numbers only just creeping beyond the 1 million mark.
Those are some awful figures, in case you couldn't tell. Nintendo falls on the sword though and cites lack of compelling first-party software were the blame of the console's poor performance.
For these three months, ending on June 30, Nintendo's net sales were up by 3.8 per cent reaching ¥81.5 billion ($832.6m / £547.5m) with a net profit of ¥8.6 billion ($88m / £57.9m), which is in contrast to the ¥17.2 billion loss that the company suffered in the same period last year. Their gross profit came in at ¥36.4 billion and their net profit was ¥8.6 billion. During this time they also suffered an operating loss of ¥4.9 billion ($50.2m / £33m) due to research and development regarding the Wii U and an increase in marketing costs for the 3DS.
Once again it has been the 3DS that has helped Nintendo's financial report not become a complete failure, the handheld managed to reach sales of 1.4 million units and software sales were over 11 million. The strongest performer for the 3DS was Animal Crossing: New Leaf, which released during the last financial year in Japan and managed to shift 3 million units, as it shifted 1.54 million additional units (1.19 million of those were from overseas markets in the US and Europe after game's June release). They also confirmed that Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon has sold 1.43 million units and that Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D "has been well received" but they provided no concrete figures.
During the last three months the Wii U's predecessor, the Wii, managed to outsell Nintendo's new hardware with the aging console selling 210,000 units and 3.67 million games. Additionally, the Wii finally broke the 100 million mark for hardware sales. This has helped the Wii become Nintendo's third most successful gaming device, the Game Boy still sits atop the list with lifetime sales amounting to 118.69 million.
Nintendo cites the upcoming Wii U release schedule as their solution to the disappointing Wii U sales and the company seems set to better communicate the message of the Wii U (hardware and software) to consumers through the Miiverse. They are also striving to "improve hardware profitability by reducing its costs."
What do you think Nintendo will have to do to turn things around? There's little doubt that the next few months are looking a lot better for Nintendo's hardware though, so fingers crossed that we'll see some improvements.
Written by: Kyran Morrison
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