The Wii U isn’t doing so well. Nintendo warned investors that would be the case earlier this month when it released its sales forecast for the fiscal year. While Nintendo’s fiscal year isn’t over until March 31, its Q3 results give us a pretty good idea of where the Wii U and 3DS will be come then.
Nintendo released its Q3 financial results this morning and there wasn’t many surprises. The Wii U continues to do poorly with only 2.41 million units sold in the past three quarters. As for 3DS, the handheld managed to do much better with 11.65 million units sold in the last three quarters. Despite the disappointing Wii U sales, Nintendo managed to pull ahead in Q3 with an operating profit of $21.7 billion yen ($210 million).
As for software sales, Nintendo reports that it sold 57.25 million 3DS software units in the first nine months of the fiscal year. Some of the heavy hitters this year included Pokemon X/Y which sold 11.61 million units and The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds which sold 2.18 million units.
Wii U software sales were not as impressive, but Nintendo managed to sell 15.96 million software units in the first nine months of this fiscal year. While it didn’t provide exact sales, it states that The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD, Wii Party U and Super Mario 3D World all managed to sell over a million units.
For its legacy systems, Nintendo reports that the original Nintendo DS line saw 0.11 million hardware units and 8.63 software units sold in the first nine months of this year. The Wii had it a bit better with 1.07 million hardware and 23.27 million software units sold.
While Nintendo may have squeaked by with a small profit in the third quarter, it’s fiscal year results aren’t looking quite as bright. The company expects to post an operating loss of $35 billion yen ($339 million) for the fiscal year ending March 31. This will be its third consecutive annual operating loss.
So, what does Nintendo plan to do about all of this? Nobody knows quite yet, but Nintendo plans on holding a shareholders conference tonight at 8 p.m. to discuss its plans for the future. Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata has already taken a 50 percent pay cut to offset the Wii U losses, but is expected to announce a new direction for the company at tonight’s meeting. Rumors are stating that Nintendo will be releasing mini-games and demos on smartphones to bring people to its own hardware and games, but the company has since denied that report. As for what will actually be announced – who knows?
Image via Wikimedia Commons
