While the Wii U intially sold out like hotcakes when it was first available for pre-orders, it seems it might not be selling like the original Wii as Nintendo has slashed its sales forecast for both the Nintendo 3DS and the Wii U.
The company is now expecting to sell 4 million Wii U consoles by the end of March, which is down from their earlier forecast of 5.5 million units. Additionally, their initial sales estimates for the Nintendo 3DS, which was pegged at 17.5 million, has now dipped to 15 million. Nintendo is not stopping there, even the DS' sales targets are getting slashed from 2.5 million to 2.3 million.
However. that doesn't mean Nintendo isn't making out like bandits yet again. The company has raised its full-year profits expectations from 14 billion yen ($153.8 million) and has also revealed that they've sold over 3 million Wi Us from November to the end of December last year.
For the nine-months ended on December 31, 2012, Nintendo recorded net profits of 14.5 billion yen ($159 million), compared to last year's loss of 48 billion yen, with sales of 543 billion yen ($5.9 billion). Nintendo states that "owing to the fact that the Wii U hardware sales have a negative impact on Nintendo's profits, the operating loss was ¥5.8 billion."
What's odd here is that the original Wii us outselling the Wii U with 3.53 million hardware sales and 45.08 million software sales. Let's hope Nintendo's next-gen console will beat its "dead" predecessor soon. The Wii U has sold 3.06 million units from November to December, with software sales of the next-gen console sitting at 11.69 million units.
Here are the software sales breakdown ending December 31, 2012.
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New Super Mario Bros. U (Wii U) – 2.01 million
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Nintendo Land (Wii U) – 2.33 million
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Pokemon Black Version 2/ Pokemon White Version 2 (DS) – 7.63 million
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New Super Mario Bros. 2 (3DS) – 5.96 million
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Animal Crossing: New Leaf (3DS) – 2.73 million
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Super Mario 3D Land (3DS) – 12.71 million
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Mario Kart 7 (3DS) – 39.56 million
With the PS4 and Xbox 720 speculated to launch this year, Nintendo's Wii U might have a rough road ahead of them when it comes to retail. We'll know for sure once all three next-gen consoles are out on the market.
Source: GamesIndustry
