The Nintendo Wii U isn’t selling as well as had been expected, forcing Nintendo to lower its sales forecasts for the games console.
The news of this underperformance came from Nintendo’s Q3 financial report. The Kyoto-based company had expected to sell 5.5 million Wii U consoles by the end of the financial year, which is in March.
Now, however, Nintendo has cut those projected sales to just 4 million Wii U consoles. That’s a decrease of some 27 per cent.
This relatively gloomy forecast follows sales to this point of just 3.06 million Wii U consoles. Given that the company makes a loss on every Wii U sold – something the company didn’t have to contend with in the original Wii – it’s not a particularly encouraging outlook.
Indeed, the loss-making nature of Wii U production has contributed to an operating loss of 5.8 billion yen – around £40.4 million – for Nintendo.
Nintendo 3DS sales have also been disappointing, leading to a cut in projected sales from 17.5 million to 15 million handheld devices.
On the positive side, software sales appear to be strong for the house of Mario. Pokemon Black Version 2 and White Version 2 sold 7.63 million copies for the aging Nintendo DS. Animal Crossing: New Leaf for the Nintendo 3DS sold 2.73 million copies, and New Super Mario Bros U sold 2.01 million copies.
As the keen-eyed mathematicians among you will have worked out from that last figure, this means that two in three Nintendo Wii U owners have bought the latest Mario game with their consoles. That’s quite an attach rate.
Have you been put off from buying the Nintendo Wii U for any reason? Share your views in the comments section below.
Via: The Verge
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
